Category Archives: UK

Mayor launches Islam Awareness Week

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A leading Islamic organisation was today kicking off its nationwide awareness week in the capital in an effort to promote better understanding of the religion and its historical links with Britain.

Mayor Ken Livingstone was launching Islam Awareness Week at a ceremony at City Hall with the message “One London”. Guest speakers at the ceremony include author and leading historian Professor Nabil Matar and secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie.

Shafeeq Sadiq, national co-ordinator of Islam Awareness Week, said: “We need to remember the positive spirit that embraced the nation, and especially the capital, after London won the Olympic bid. It is with such optimism and hope that we will defeat terrorism.”

Now in its 12th year, the Islamic Society of Britain’s initiative aims to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together through a host of events and activities being held in towns and cities across the country.

During the week, the capital will see an east London mosque throw open its doors to the public, the staging of Islam-themed exhibitions and lectures and the screening of a film exploring the life of a great Muslim philosopher.

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Why Britain needs a religious hatred law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterWhy Britain needs a religious hatred law

By Murad Qureshi

Morning Star, 21 November 2005

This month anti-racists celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the introduction of the first race relations legislation in Britain.

Among its other provisions, the ground-breaking 1965 Race Relations Act made it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to stir up racial hatred. However, while the Act marked an important first step in providing legal protection to minority communities from racism, it proved difficult to secure convictions for this particular offence.

In 1968 four members of a far-right organisation calling itself the Racial Preservation Society were prosecuted under the Act after publishing an anti-immigration newsletter in which they warned against “racial mixing” and accused politicians of encouraging “racial levelling.”

Even though the material plainly had the effect of inciting racial hatred, the prosecution was unable to prove that this was what the defendants intended – as was required by the 1965 Act. The defendants claimed that their intention was not to incite hatred but merely to educate the public about the consequences of immigration. As a result, they were acquitted.

In his inquiry into the death of Kevin Gately at an anti-fascist protest in London’s Red Lion Square in 1974, Lord Scarman argued that the racial hatred law needed “radical amendment to make it an effective sanction, particularly in relation to its formulation of the intent to be proved before an offence can be established.”

Subsequent legislation amended the law along the lines proposed by Lord Scarman. Part 3 of the 1986 Public Order Act improves on the original 1965 law by criminalising words and actions that have, or are likely to have, the objective effect of stirring up racial hatred. The 1986 Act allows the defence that the incitement of hatred was not intended, but, rather than the prosecution being required to prove intent, the onus is now on the defendant to demonstrate the absence of intent.

This is hardly a draconian law and, under the 1986 Act, it is still far from easy to mount a successful prosecution for inciting racial hatred. Earlier this year, the Attorney-General stated that, since 1987, when the Act came into force, only 65 people had been prosecuted for inciting racial hatred, resulting in 44 convictions. Indeed, the Commission for Racial Equality has complained that “the evidential test under the Public Order Act is extremely difficult to satisfy.”

A more fundamental weakness in the existing legislation, however, is that Jews and Sikhs are protected against incitement to racial hatred as members of monoethnic religions while multi-ethnic faith groups such as Muslims and Hindus are not.

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Nazi embraces Sookhdeo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterBNP leader Nick Griffin warns of the threatening Muslim conquest of Europe, taking as his text an article by “Patrick Sookhdeo, the brave International Director of the Barnabas Fund”.

Der führer applauds Sookhdeo’s prescience: “Dr. Sookhdeo published his essay on ‘The Islamization of Europe‘ on August 11th, several months before the start of the weeks of carefully orchestrated violence by Muslim ‘youths’ in hundreds of French towns and cities gave us a glimpse into what we must all expect as the Islamists’ drive to take over our European homelands moves into its next phase.”

Griffin is not entirely uncritical, though: “Dr. Sookhdeo is to my mind downplaying his case – perhaps on account of not being in a position to keep such a close eye as ourselves on the multi-culti Islamophile activities of Britain’s liberal elite.”

Still, overall it’s an enthusiastic thumbs-up to Sookhdeo’s analysis from the fascists.

BNP website, 21 November 2005

Sookhdeo must be really proud of himself. Invitations from Boris Johnson to write for the Spectator, applause from Melanie Phillips, and now endorsement from the BNP. Evangelical Christians, Tories, right-wing Zionists and Nazi racists all coming together in one big happy Islamophobic family.

Acpo warns that Terrorism Bill will alienate Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) privately opposed four of the government’s 14 main proposals announced after the July 7 London bombings. Other proposals could damage community relations, Acpo believes.

The confidential Acpo assessment of the 14 or so measures concludes that all risk alienating Muslims. Senior officers believe they must increase the levels of confidence British Muslims have in the police. According to a document seen by the Guardian, the four measures from which Acpo withheld support were:

  • Amending human rights laws to get round obstacles to new deportation rules.
  • Making the justification or glorification of terrorism anywhere an offence.
  • Automatically refusing asylum to anyone linked to terrorism anywhere.
  • Banning the alleged extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and successor groups to al-Muhajiroun. Acpo says it knows of no intelligence to justify a Hizb ut-Tahrir ban.

Guardian, 21 November 2005

Would-be führer speaks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainNick Griffin addressed the massed ranks of the BNP (all 130 of them) at the fascists’ conference in London this weekend:

“… he explained the true long-term significance of the Islamic riots and commando-style arson wave in France, and of less dramatic developments in Britain such as the presence on Britain’s airwaves of more than thirty Islamic community radio stations during Ramadan. We are entering, he said, the Intifada phase of a well-organised Islamic drive to conquer the whole of Europe. This will become the overriding issue of our Age, and the only way in which the BNP – the only effective defenders of our traditions, freedoms, Western civilisation and identity – can win in this struggle is through organisation, sacrifice and unity.”

BNP news article, 20 November 2005

Yes, take out the party-political reference to the BNP, and it does rather sound like Melanie Phillips, doesn’t it?

Liberals rally against religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Free ExpressionIn excerpts from a forthcoming book entitled ‘Free Expression is No Offence’, Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Philip Hensher and Salman Rushdie consider the threat to free speech contained in the government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pretentious waffle, interspersed with ignorant remarks.

Guardian, 19 November 2005

“If you choose to stop being a Muslim, you are an apostate and, depending on where you live, liable to severe punishment, which might include the death penalty. So being a Muslim is partly a matter of choice and partly one of coercion.” (I must hurry and warn a Muslim friend of mine, who is considering converting to Christianity.)

“Hate-speech laws in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands have not resulted in a decrease in insults directed towards Jews, Muslims, Turks, African immigrants or other minorities. In fact there has been growth in support for the extreme right in those countries.” (If this is an argument against introducing a religious hatred law, it’s equally an argument in favour of abolishing the existing racial hatred laws. Is that what is being proposed?)

“… a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate British Muslim spokesmen, in whose eyes just about any critique of Islam is offensive…. New Labour is playing with the fire of communal politics, and in consequence we may all be burned.” (Oh piss off, Salman.)

Fascists take advantage of loophole in racial hatred law again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We are all now only too familiar with the despicable practice of Muslim gangs preying on white schoolgirls in Keighley for purposes of ‘grooming’. A process leading to a life of prostitution, drug addiction and degradation for the unfortunate girls concerned. We are also equally aware of how this matter is being played down and minimalized by officialdom, purely to ‘preserve good community relations’.

“So why do Muslim gangs seek out white and/or Christian, rather than Muslim, girls to pimp and exploit? Although we know this is a question that the Muslim Council of Great Britain could answer by quoting extensively from Koranic verse, we are not naïve enough to believe that they will so do. This being yet another question about their ‘religion of peace’ they cannot, or perhaps more accurately, dare not answer.”

BNP news article, 17 November 2005

A far-right racist and crazed reactionary demagogue writes …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Britain’s state of denial continues to deepen. We saw it after 9/11, when people said America had brought the atrocity upon itself – mainly through its ‘uncritical’ support for Israel. Then after Britain’s own human bomb attacks last July, the media became gripped by fear not of Islamist terrorism but of Islamophobia, or fear of the fear of Islamist terrorism. Now we are told that the riots in France by Muslim and Arab youths from the banlieues – the city suburbs – have nothing to do with Islam but are the result of poverty, unemployment, racism and discrimination. Those who say, au contraire, that Islam is at the core of the disorder are being vilified as far-right racists and crazed reactionary demagogues.”

Melanie Phillips in the Jewish Chronicle, 18 November 2005

Piggy bank pork pies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hogwash“Remember the political-correctness-gone-mad story about the Halifax and Nat West banning piggy banks so as not to offend Muslims? The Daily Express led with it, as did several internet news sources and a few of the more intemperate blogs. Well, Australian Mediawatch reveals that it wasn’t true.

“The Halifax press office said in an email to Mediawatch: ‘Halifax has not withdrawn any piggy banks from branches. As a matter of fact we have not used piggy banks in our branches for a number of years.’ And the media relations office of the Nat West wrote: ‘There is absolutely no fact in the story. We simply had a UK wide savings marketing campaign, which included pictures of piggy banks, running until the end of September. Piggy banks have been and will continue to be used as a promotional item by NatWest’.”

MediaWatchWatch, 16 November 2005

Credit where it’s due, though. Two weeks ago even that most intemperate of anti-Muslim bloggers, Robert Spencer, admitted that he got it wrong.

The question is why anyone ever swallowed this patently bogus story in the first place.

British terror suspect to be extradited to US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British terror suspect to be extradited to US

By Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 17 November 2005

Peace campaigners attacked Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s “disgraceful” decision yesterday to extradite British terror suspect Barbar Ahmad to the US where he could be executed.

Mr Clarke ordered the extradition of Mr Ahmad, currently being held in Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, because of US allegations that he raised money to support terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan through websites.

The US government also accused Mr Ahmad of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Arizona, but is yet to back its accusations with evidence.

Mr Ahmad’s family said that they would be appealing against his extradition in the High Court.

In a posting on his website, Mr Ahmad – a computer expert from Tooting in south west London – said: “This decision should only come as a surprise to those who thought that there was still justice for Muslims in Britain.”

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