Category Archives: UK

Fascists launch local election campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP election campaignThe BNP reports on the launch of its local election campaign:

“BNP leader Nick Griffin spoke of the significance of the day of the launch; Good Friday was deliberately chosen to emphasise that Britain was fundamentally a Christian country and that the elections on May 4th offer the electorate an opportunity to vote for the continued demise of our traditions and values under the failed trio of Old Gang parties who continue to pander to the twin evils of multiculturalism and globalisation and further have failed to grasp the very real threat posed by militant Islam, or a renaissance of traditional western European Christian values under the stewardship and guidance of the British National Party.”

BNP news report, 14 April 2006

US barring of Muslim is still a puzzle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq_RamadanUS government lawyers clarified some mysteries and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004.

Papers the government presented at a hearing in a US court Thursday in New York revealed that, contrary to officials’ statements, a clause in the USA Patriot Act that bans any foreigner who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity” was not the reason Ramadan’s US visa was revoked. The government said it did not intend to bar Ramadan in the future based on that clause, sometimes called the ideological exclusion provision.

But the government also said Ramadan’s case had been and remained a national security matter, and that statements he made in recent interviews with US consular officials in Switzerland had raised new “serious questions” about whether he should be allowed to come to the United States. Neither the government’s documents nor its lawyer, David Jones, an assistant US attorney, explained why Ramadan was banned or provided any detail about the administration’s new concerns in his case.

The hearing, before Judge Paul Crotty in US District Court in New York, came in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three academic and writers’ organizations who had invited Ramadan to speak at conferences. The groups claim their constitutional rights have been violated because they cannot meet with Ramadan in the United States.

New York Times, 14 April 2006

See also Islam Online, 14 April 2006

Terror law an affront to justice – judge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A high court judge branded the government’s system of control orders against terrorism suspects “an affront to justice” yesterday and ruled that they breached human rights laws. The ruling by Mr Justice Sullivan came after a challenge to the first control order issued against a British Muslim man, alleged by the security services and the home secretary to have been planning to travel to Iraq to fight UK and US forces.

Muddassar Arani, solicitor for the Briton, who is of Arab heritage, said: “This was the first British Muslim subject to a control order and he’s being treated as a second-class citizen. “It is clear the home secretary is acting as the judge, jury and prosecutor.”

Guardian, 13 April 2006

Say it loud, I’m vile and proud

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shirin Aguiar-Holloway reports on Abdel Sharif Gawad, the BNP candidate in Bradford, whose candidacy has produced dissent within the fascists’ own ranks. Gawad is of Armenian heritage, and his grandfather was a Muslim convert to Christianity.

Paul Maszarof, local TUC activist, said: “They [the BNP] think it’s a good old laugh, ‘Let’s get an Islamic-sounding name and see if we can whip things up.’ It can only be to cause trouble and provoke a response.”

Gerry Gable, head of the anti-fascist monitoring organisation Searchlight, said: “The Bradford organiser has actually resigned over this and some of the activists are refusing to work with this guy. By putting him up, the BNP are trying to pretend they are not really racist. It’s clearly a wind-up to the Muslim community.”

Mr Maszarof added: “They’re going through a different organiser each week. Dozens of their activists are refusing to lift their finger. It’s a fairly spectacular own goal.”

BLINK, 10 April 2006

At least one BNP member is happy with Nick Griffin’s strategy: “Of course some members are going to be upset at this latest move, but they have to realise that the BNP would have never got in unless they did change (and thank God for that), and Nick seems to be changing all the right things, while leaving the important things such as the absolute rejection of islam as anything other than a ‘vile, wicked cult’ in place. And good for him, now we all have a chance at seeing the next century out in a free country, or at least our children do.”

BNP and Me, 8 April 2006

Rising Islamophobia makes Birmingham fertile ground for BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP leaflet 3“This party’s for white people, I make no bones about that,” says Simon Darby, the man leading the far right’s expansion in Birmingham.

The British National Party’s regional organiser – already a councillor in nearby Dudley and one of 23 BNP councillors in the country – believes the party can exploit increasing Islamophobia and disillusionment with mainstream political parties to make gains in local elections on 4 May.

The problem with Birmingham, says Mr Darby, is that there are so many non-whites. “Birmingham will become an Islamic city in 10 to 20 years, and to a lot of people that is quite startling, that a city in the middle of England can swap over to sharia law.”

Independent, 8 April 2006

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Tatchell shame over this platform share

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in Tribune, 7 April 2006

It is ironic that, only a week after Peter Tatchell’s article attacking the anti-fascist movement in Tribune, he appeared on the platform at the “Freedom of Expression” rally which had the support of the British National Party and Civil Liberty, whose director is Kevin Scott, a BNP organiser and candidate at the 2005 general election.

I am shocked at Tatchell’s decision to speak on this platform. The BNP exists in the tradition of the Nazis, who not only opposed freedom of speech in the abstract, but exterminated millions of people in the death camps. The BNP denies the reality of the Holocaust and calls for an all-white Britain.

As the secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism, I will unite with everyone who will fight against fascism so that such murderous policies can never be pursued in Britain, even if I profoundly differ with them on many other questions.

Had he attended the Unite Against Fascism conference he would know that this very point was made by almost every speaker, including the Muslim Council of Britain.

Lee Jasper

The Bolsheviks and Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Faced with a possible disaster in Iraq, the political establishment has closed ranks to scapegoat Islam. On the day of the London bombings in July 2005, Blair’s foreign secretary Jack Straw set the tone for a renewed onslaught, crudely dismissing any connection with Iraq. Solidarity with Muslims in the anti-war movement has been pilloried by the right’s most effective allies – critics with left-liberal credentials. The response to the racist cartoons published in European newspapers has highlighted the extent of Islamophobia in so called liberal circles – and confusion on the left.”

Dave Crouch in International Socialism No.110, Spring 2006

Regarding the Bolsheviks’ practice in government, Crouch writes:

“Sharia law had been a central demand of Muslims during the February Revolution of 1917 and, as the civil war drew to a close in 1920-1921, a parallel court system was created in Central Asia and the Caucasus, with Islamic courts administering justice in accordance with sharia law side by side with Soviet legal institutions. The aim was for people to have a choice between religious and revolutionary justice.

“A Sharia Commission was established in the Soviet Commissariat of Justice to oversee the system. In 1921 a series of commissions were attached to regional units of the Soviet administration with the purpose of adapting the Russian legal code to the conditions of Central Asia, allowing for compromise between the two systems on questions such as under-age marriage and polygamy.”

A million miles away from the Islamophobic absurdities of Maryam Namazie, Homa Arjomand and their fellow sectarians in the Worker Communist Party of Iran, you’d have to agree.