Muslim graves destroyed in Birmingham

Grave desecrationDozens of Muslim grave stones have been smashed and pushed over in a cemetery in Handsworth in Birmingham. The desecration was discovered on Friday by relatives visiting the Muslim part of the cemetery. Leaflets were scattered, with insults against Muslims which were attributable to “Black Nation”.

BBC News, 4 November 2005

An unheard of group calling themselves the Black Nation has desecrated Muslim graves in Birmingham. There is speculation that the attack was not the work of African-Caribbeans. One Birmingham source said he had never heard of the “Black Nation” and that the incident had all the hall-marks of outsiders, possibly the far-right, trying to provoke further violence between African-Caribbean and Asian youths ahead of the weekend. The far-right has a long history of grave desecration against Jews and Muslims. None of the African-Caribbean figures Blink has spoken to had heard of the “Black Nation” raising the possibility it was the sort of stereotypical name a white racist might make up.

BLINK news report, 4 November 2005

‘Qaradawi calls for gay men to be executed’ … again

Ex-Marxist enthusiast for imperialist war Norman Geras has posted a message from journalist Andrew Anthony, who tries to justify his Guardian article from a couple of months back attacking Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Normblog, 3 November 2005

Note that Anthony makes no attempt to defend his article’s claim that Qaradawi says it is a duty for Muslims to become suicide bombers in Iraq – a story originating with MEMRI, who produced the “evidence” for it by splicing together various sections of a speech made by Qaradawi … at a conference called to oppose terrorism. Nor does Anthony try to back up his assertion that Dr Q has “argued that it is OK to kill Jewish foetuses because they would grow up to be Israeli soldiers”.

However, he does stand by the following statement from his Guardian article:

“In 2003, Al-Qaradawi dealt with the punishment for the sin of homosexuality on the website Islamonline. ‘Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death?’ he asked with theological dispassion, before concluding: ‘While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements’.”

Andrew Anthony obviously thinks he’s on solid ground with this one. Qaradawi’s statement was an “official religious judgment”, apparently – an “official fatwa”.

Actually, the Islam Online piece that Anthony cites is an anonymously compiled selection of quotations from various Islamic sources on the subect of homosexuality. The quote from Qaradawi – in which he summarises the views of other scholars but does not give his own opinion – is taken from a book called “The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam” which was published … back in 1960!

As we’ve pointed out a number of times before, if Qaradawi does indeed hold that gay men should be put to death, then a statement to that effect can presumably be found among his voluminous writings and statements over the subsequent forty-five years. A journalist with Andrew Anthony’s evident talent for detailed and reliable research should have no problem finding one, surely?

‘Violent Muslim youth riot for seventh day in Paris’

The link is to Fox News but the headline is all Front Page Magazine’s own.

Front Page Magazine, 3 November 2005

Robert Spencer also supplies his own headline – “French Muslims riot for seventh night running” – to a Reuters report entitled “French youths riot for seventh night running”. He explains: “The difference between the Reuters headline and mine epitomizes the difficulty the French have in facing the real dimensions of this problem. For it is ultimately not a problem of disaffected youth who just need jobs and money, but of youth who consider the French government a foreign power, and one that ultimately must be replaced by a very different kind of government.” It’s suprising Robert doesn’t propose a headline reading: “Muslim rioters demand restoration of the Caliphate.”

Jihad Watch, 3 November 2005

And over at the BNP website we are told that “the scale of the violence by Muslim gangs is unprecedented and highlights the hatred and contempt for western society by the rioters”. This “demonstrates the folly of allowing a flood of inassimilable migrants into the heart of western cities”. In other words, an almost identical analysis to Robert Spencer’s.

BNP news article, 2 November 2005

For an alternative view see BBC News, 2 November 2005

Row as Christmas lights renamed

Christmas is bannedA decision to call Christmas lights “Winter Lights” in south London has been condemned as showing a “total lack of respect” for Christians.

Advertisements for the switch-on of the lights in multi-cultural Lambeth have renamed them, apparently for fear of offending other faiths.

Tory councillor Bernard Gentry told the BBC: “Christmas appears to have been cancelled in our borough”.

BBC News, 2 November 2005

However, a council spokesman was quoted as making the not unreasonable point: “The term winter lights simply reflects the fact that a number of religious festivals take place over the winter period when the lights are switched on.”

The Times, 2 November 2005

Predictably, this produced the usual Islamophobic response in the right-wing press, with the Express splashing the story under the headline “Christmas is Banned: It Offends Muslims”. In fact the other obvious winter festival involving the display of lights is Diwali. So it would appear that the change of terminology was motivated more by the desire to avoid offending Hindus. And why not? You can imagine the outcry from the Tory press if the winter lights used at Christmas were described as “Diwali lights”.

‘Confrontation is a good thing’

“Bush is a polarising figure because these are polarising times. But, when the dust settles (metaphorically, I hope), his designation of Iran as part of an ‘axis of evil’ will seem a shrewder judgment than that of the Euro-appeasers or the snob Islamophiles. Facing profound challenges, most political leaders in the western world have shirked confrontation on everything from Islamism to unaffordable social programmes – and their peoples will live with the consequences of that non-confrontation long after those leaders are gone.”

Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2005

Prince Charles – pawn of the Islamists

Prince Charles and Yusuf Islam“The fact is that Islam is not a religion among religions. Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Hinduism do not advocate killing off all those who do not agree with their tenets. Islam advocates that all non-Muslims, being ‘infidels’, must be slain. Cowardly Muslims who do not enter into the slaughter are to be slain by zealot Muslims. Therefore, Islam is not a religion. It is a killing cult. Civilized nations close down killing cults…. It is abhorrent that Charles, with the power attending his position, has been so duped by Islamic leaders he has courted. Yet it is so. And the world is in extreme danger because of it.”

J. Grant Swank at FaithFreedom.org, 31 October 2005

See also Dhimmi Watch, 29 October 2005 (“Richard the Lionheart is rolling in his grave”)