Category Archives: UK

Times attack on Muslim college

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Islamic college accused of teaching extremist doctrine has hit back dismissing the article in The Times newspaper as immature and unfounded and describing it as a classic example of an Islamophobic report that incites to violence and hatred.

Hawza Ilmiyya in London, a Shiite seminary, labelled Sean O’Neill’s report as totally biased, erroneous and shocking, that was done to “provoke tension in different parts of society between Muslims and non-Muslims” and which has since led to the institution receiving threatening phones calls and death threats.

The article entitled: “Muslim students ‘being taught to despise unbelievers as filth’”, claimed that anonymous students from the college were disturbed and worried over a medieval text being taught that apparently described non-Muslims as “filth” and likened them to dogs and pigs.

But the college has rejected the portrayal of its academic environment as a “hotbed of religious intolerance and extremism” as going against the very ethos upon which it was established in 2002 – “to train religious scholars and Imams to serve the growing needs of the Muslim community in Britain”.

Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour, the Director of Studies at the college, said that neither he nor any of his students had ever learned to “despise” anyone. “We do not even despise Sean O’Neill who has written this sensational and confusing report,” he said.

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The roots of the BNP’s appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When employment minister Margaret Hodge said eight out of ten white voters might vote BNP in Barking, it was linked by many in the media to a new report called The BNP: The Roots of its Appeal. This report is produced by Democratic Audit, an academic research unit based at the University of Essex, and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

“In fact the report is far more sober and nuanced in its assessment of the BNP threat than the media spin would suggest. It mentions polls in London in 2004 that found 23 percent of respondents said they ‘might vote’ for the BNP, as opposed to those who ‘could never vote’ for them. But it also cites poll data that 64 percent of people across Britain expressed a strong dislike for the BNP. This ‘seems to confirm the existence of a large majority of voters for whom extremist parties advocating racist ideas are an anathema’, the report’s authors write….

“The authors explain how important it is for the BNP to be able to repackage racism in terms of defences of ‘free speech’ or attacks on Islam. ‘It is this stance that allows them to campaign viciously on race and especially against Muslims while retaining an outward air of respectability,’ they write.”

Anindya Bhattacharyya in Socialist Worker, 29 April 2006

See also “Livingstone slams claim that 1 in 4 Londoners support BNP”, UAF news report, 25 April 2006

For the Democratic Audit/Rowntree Trust report, see (pdf) here

UAF rally in Trafalgar Square next Saturday

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unite Against Fascism/ Love Music Hate Racism and present:

Rally against racism and fascism

Saturday April 29th 2006, from 12 noon, Trafalgar Square, London

This event will celebrate our multi-racial, multi-faith society. The Nazi BNP want to spread hatred and divide us. Join us in sending a message that we will not be divided – no to racism.

•  Use your vote to stop the BNP on 4 May

•  Unite Against Fascism

•  No to Islamophobia

Muslim ‘must pay for visa checks’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mohammed Umar Haleem KhanA Muslim student had to pay extra for security checks when applying for a visa to visit the United States, because his name was Mohammed. Mohammed Umar Haleem Khan, 22, was told by US Embassy officials that “a lot of bad people” shared his name. The Manchester Metropolitan University student had to pay an extra $80 (£45) to have his fingerprints checked against a US terror suspect database.

Mr Khan was planning to work for the Camp America project in Philadelphia. He said: “She asked me all the usual questions like what was my purpose for visiting and what was the nature of my job and then she said there was a problem with my name. She said there were a lot of bad people in the world with that name, meaning terrorists…. I’m sure that if some white candidate came along there would have been no problem.”

Mr Khan added that he had never visited Afghanistan or any other trouble hotspots and could think of no reason why his name would cause a problem.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain Inayat Bunglawala said: “This is a worrying incident and seems to fit a recent pattern whereby the USA appears to be treating all Muslims as potential terrorists just because of their religion. Although Muslim parents name their children from a wide variety of names – just like other parents – many of them, especially those from the Indian subcontinent, will often give their male children the name of Muhammad as a kind of respectful prefix in honour of the Prophet, even though the actual name by which these children are known will be something else.

“US Embassy officials ought really to have had the training to cope with basic elements of Muslim culture which would help prevent these kinds of unfortunate situations.”

BBC News, 24 April 2006

Protest attack on Islamic colleges in The Times

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP council electionsJohn Harris reports on the BNP’s local election campaign in Stoke-on-Trent. The fascists are focusing on plans to build a new mosque in Hanley. Their leaflet features a silhouetted minaret next to a row of terraced houses and the headline, “Is this what you want for Stoke?”

Harris talks to a BNP candidate named Neil Albert Walker, who tells him: “The white people living right by the mosque will have to move away. They’d feel intimidated. There’s already several mosques in the city, and if you were near a mosque on a Friday afternoon, you’d realise what we mean. It’s just absolutely awash with Muslims, and they’re aggressive towards people who… aren’t Muslims, basically.”

Walker says the problem is that “the Muslims will not live peacefully alongside any other religion” because “their religion tells them they must master everyone else”. The BNP seems to believe the UK would be better off without any Muslims at all, Harris suggests. “In my opinion,” Walker replies, “it would.”

Guardian, 22 April 2006

Muslim students are not being influenced by extremists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A Guardian Education article sought to attribute the increased participation of Muslim students within the National Union of Students to a rising trend of ‘extremism’ (Adding their voice to the debate, April 4). In the post-7/7 age, it is unfortunate that such accusations are levied at the Muslim community all too easily.

“The allegations stem from the Federation of Student Islamic Societies’ (Fosis) support for the removal of Hizb ut-Tahrir from the NUS’s No-Platform for Racists policy. When the decision to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir was taken in 2004, Muslim students were under-represented in the NUS and there was a lack of proper debate. Many unsubstantiated accusations have been levied against Hizb ut-Tahrir in the past, but in reality the organisation works to advance the Muslim world by engaging in political work. It uses non-violent means and is opposed to terrorism, having condemned the terrorist activities of 9/11 and 7/7. Many Muslims may have disagreements with the organisation, but they unanimously assert that this does not render it extremist; and they defend its right to free speech.”

Wakkas Khan of FOSIS writes in the Guardian, 21 April 2006

No doubt Muslim students’ right to free speech will be high up the agenda when the “March for Free Expression” holds its policy meeting tomorrow in London. Another contribution to this question that the MFE might like to consider is the paper presented last month to the All Party Parliamentary University Group by Abdurrahman Jafar of the MCB (see here and here). Such issues as the disciplining of Nasser Amin for expressing his views on the Palestine-Israel conflict in a SOAS student magazine will of course be of particular concern to these doughty defenders of free speech.

Fascists’ election lies exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

fascist and flagFascists’ election lies exposed

By Nick West

Tribune, 14 April 2006

The attempted flooding of the London Underground by Islamist terrorists is just one of many lies being peddled by fascist British National Party candidates at the forthcoming local elections. Claiming to have a confidential Metropolitan Police source who revealed the plot to bomb the London tube, the BNP says the threat from Islamic terrorists is far worse than imagined, as its members step up their attempt to demonise the Islamic community.

The party’s publications are decribing the local elections as a “Referendum on Islam” and claiming the government’s “slack” asylum and immigration policies and the war in Iraq are responsible for Islamic terrosrism. A BNP leaflet, distributed only days after the bombings last July, said: “If only they had listened to the BNP”.

This approach has led certain sections of the BNP to hand out copies of the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed, leading to one BNP canvasser being hospitalised. An even more controversial approach has been taken in Leeds, where the latest edition of the BNP’s Morley Patriot called for the banning of the burka and the removal of Muslims from any job that involves chemicals or electronics. Other tactics have seen BNP canvassers presenting themselves as “old Labour”. A recent BNP leaflet in Sandwell in the West Midlands proudly announced this was “the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for”.

Target areas for the BNP, which is standing a record 357 candidates, are where it has contested previous by-elections, thrown regional or national resources at a campaign and collected voter data. Target councils are Thurrock, Barking and Dagenham, Epping, Bexley, Stoke-on-Trent, Dudley, Oldham, Manchester, Burnley, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale and Amber Valley.

Islamaphobia on the rise in schools, teachers warn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Teachers’ leaders have warned of a rising tide of Islamaphobia in schools in the wake of last year’s bomb attacks on London.

Delegates at the National Union of Teachers’ conference in Torquay said that many Muslims felt under increasing pressure from racial intolerance. They also warned that groups such as the British National Party and the National Front had been exploiting the tensions and spreading a message of racial hatred. “We note that such fascist and racist organisations have announced their intention to stand in seats across the country in order to profit from such an atmosphere,” the union said.

Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the NUT, said the union had had increased incidents of name-calling against Muslim students reported to it. “There have been other instances of a more extreme nature where people have been attacked or spat at because they may appear to be Muslim,” he added. The union has issued guidelines to all members insisting they should tackle racial incidents in schools and make it clear that there is no excuse for racist behaviour.

Independent, 17 April 2006

See also Islam Online, 17 April 2006