Category Archives: UK

Tory MP says Ukip politician’s call for Muslim code of conduct is frightening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Halfon CFI & HJSGerard Batten, the senior Ukip politician who called for Muslims to sign a code of conduct, has been accused of taking an “unbelievably sinister” position that is comparable to asking members of the faith to wear a yellow star.

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, called on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to sack Batten for his comments, after it emerged the Ukip MEP had helped write a “charter of Muslim understanding”. The document calls on Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and accepting the need to modify the Qur’an.

Halfon, who is Jewish and has spoken out repeatedly against Islamic extremism, told the Guardian he considered Batten’s views “unbelievably sinister” and “frightening”. He tweeted: “Big difference btwn lawful Muslims & extreme Islamists. UKIP MEP Batten’s statement a 1st step to wearing a Yellow Star.”

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Ukip MEP says British Muslims should sign charter rejecting violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gerard BattenA Ukip MEP believes that British Muslims should sign a special code of conduct and warns that it was a big mistake for Europe to allow “an explosion of mosques across their land”.

Gerard Batten, who represents London and is member of the party’s executive, told the Guardian on Tuesday that he stood by a “charter of Muslim understanding“, which he commissioned in 2006. The document asks Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and says parts of the Qur’an that promote “violent physical Jihad” should be regarded as “inapplicable, invalid and non-Islamic”.

Critics said his comments represent the “ugliest side of Ukip” and “overlap with the far-right”, in spite of the efforts of party leader Nigel Farage to create a disciplined election machine ahead of the European elections.

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Six youths in court over harassment of worshippers at mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six youths have appeared before magistrates charged in connection with a police inquiry into alleged harassment of worshippers travelling to a mosque in the West Midlands.

Five of the teenagers, aged between 15 and 17, pleaded not guilty to causing criminal damage to a car during a lengthy court hearing in Oldbury. The sixth defendant, aged 14, denied a charge of racially aggravated harassment.

Sandwell Magistrates’ Court heard that the youths are alleged to have been involved in public order offences committed against members of the Muslim community over a 10-day period in October last year.

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Sikhs Against Sharia exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at the Tell Mama website Steven Rose has an interesting article on Sikhs Against Sharia, whose founder (and in all likelihood, sole Sikh member) Sareeta Webra has been co-operating with Stephen Gash of Stop Islamisation of Europe in waging a hysterical campaign against plans to build a new mosque in Cambridge. As Rose points out, Webra has a record of active involvement in the Islamophobic far right going back a number of years. Varinder Singh, from the Turban Campaign, emphasises that “Sareeta Webra’s views are not those of the British Sikh Community and have no mainstream support”.

East London Mosque condemns ‘Christian Patrols’ provocation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ELM logo

Extremist Patrols Unwelcome in Tower Hamlets

East London Mosque press release, 3 February 2014

The East London Mosque is shocked to note the provocation and antics of a fringe neo-Nazi group claiming to carry out so-called ‘Christian Patrols’ outside the mosque last Friday evening (31 January).

Members of Britain First (BF), a tiny far-right organisation run by a former British National Party (BNP) councillor in Swanley, Kent, and ex-Nick Griffin protégé, Paul Golding, filmed themselves drinking cans of lager, harassing and intimidating passers-by, and handing out inflammatory leaflets for a so-called ‘Christian Patrol’.

Claiming they were looking for a confrontation with ‘Muslim Patrols’, most of their actions involved driving up and down Brick Lane in an armoured Land Rover and swilling beer, before unfurling a ‘Resistance’ banner outside the mosque.

Had they done their research, Britain First would have known that the Muslim Patrols they claimed to be opposing were in fact imprisoned last year, directly as a result of reporting and diligence by members of the local Muslim community (the mosque was also active in reporting and removing stickers for ‘Sharia’ and ‘Gay Free Zones’).

The Muslim Patrols were linked to the banned extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, whose members have been actively opposed by the East London Mosque for many years. In our view, Britain First’s patrol does not represent Christians, just as al-Muhajiroun’s patrols did not represent Muslims. Both are tiny, extreme groups, unwelcome in our community.

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How Quilliam used former EDL leaders to appeal for money

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hasan Lennon and NawazThe alacrity with which Quilliam embraced former English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) and Kevin Carroll, and presented them at a heavily publicised press conference last October as men who had renounced their former extremist views, raised considerable suspicions among Quilliam’s critics. It has been widely suggested that Quillaim’s motive was to try and regain some of the lavish state funding they once enjoyed under Labour but which had been withdrawn by the present coalition government.

Sure enough, an FOI request has revealed that Maajid Nawaz, chairman and co-founder of Quilliam, immediately fired off two emails to Mark Carroll at the Department for Communities and Local Government asking for financial assistance to facilitate Lennon and Carroll’s supposed break with extremism.

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CPS is ignoring racist motivation in murder and manslaughter cases, says damning report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Investigated or IgnoredPolice and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have “filtered out” allegations of racism from dozens of murder and manslaughter cases that have come before the courts in the last 10 years, a damning report has found.

Since 2000, judges have had a duty to hand down harsher sentences for any offence that can be shown to have been racially or religiously aggravated. But researchers from the think-tank the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) analysed 93 deaths with a known or suspected racial element since the new law came into effect, and found that in more than half of cases, evidence of the defendant’s motivation was stripped out during the investigation or prosecution process.

The report concludes that the criminal justice system still does not have a clear enough understanding of how racism is a contributory factor to serious crime and suggests it is too often being disregarded. “It [racism] has to be at its most overt and brutal – and uncontaminated by any other external factor – to be accepted by the criminal justice system,” the report concludes.

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Posted in UK

Far-right groupuscule engages in stupid provocation in Whitechapel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First Christian patrol leafletBritain First have been crowing over their latest idiotic stunt, namely the organisation of a so-called Christian Patrol in East London. (EDL News and Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion have the details.)

This involved handing out leaflets in Whitechapel on Friday evening asking passers-by to report any sightings of the so-called Muslim Patrols. In a video of the stunt, Britain First chairman Paul Golding explains that two of his members are openly smoking cigarettes and drinking cans of Stella near the East London Mosque in an attempt to “draw the Muslim Patrols out”. Given that these “patrols” involved no more than a handful of individuals and the ringleaders are now in prison, that was always going to be unlikely. The actions of Britain First amounted to nothing more than a crude provocation in an area with a large Muslim population.

Golding is currently on bail following an incident in which he and his friends harassed Anjem Choudary, and one of his bail conditions is that he should not enter the Greater London area, so you might like to ask the Metropolitan Police if they have any plans to arrest him.

Update:  See “Extremist patrols unwelcome in Tower Hamlets”, East London Mosque press release, 3 February 2014

Danny Lockwood threatens Islamophobia Watch, but thankfully only with libel action – he’s not proposing to headbutt us

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Danny Lockwood Islamic RepublicPress publisher Danny Lockwood headbutted man who criticised newspaper

Dewsbury Reporter, 1 February 2014

A publisher and columnist headbutted and punched a man who accused his newspaper of producing “discriminatory” articles.

Liam Ellis began talking to The Press’ Danny Lockwood in the Fox and Hounds pub in Hanging Heaton last April. Moments after Lockwood left, Mr Ellis went outside to apologise for the disagreement. But Lockwood headbutted Mr Ellis and repeatedly hit his upper body, forcing him back into the lobby. Kirklees Magistrates’ Court heard yesterday (Friday) that Mr Ellis needed five stitches under his left eye and his vision was still affected.

Lockwood, who represented himself, tried to claim his actions were in self-defence. The 55-year-old, of Main Street, Elvington, York, said Mr Ellis had become loud and threatening during their conversation, branding him and The Press “racist”. The court heard Lockwood had left one part of the pub to move into the taproom earlier in the evening because a man who had previously threatened to kill him was also there. After speaking to Ellis in the taproom, Lockwood said he left the pub feeling “upset, shaken and shaking”. He said he acted in self-defence as he was “in fear of what [Ellis] was going to do next”.

But District Judge Baldwin rejected Lockwood’s account, saying she believed Mr Ellis was going outside to apologise.

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EDL demonstrator who shouted racist abuse in Farnworth loses appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John BanksAn English Defence League demonstrator has lost an appeal against a conviction for shouting racist abuse at a rally in Farnworth last year.

John Banks [pictured] was among the EDL supporters who congregated at Farnworth Park on August 26 last year where there was also a counter demonstration staged by Unite Against Facism. Within seconds of getting off a coach at the park, Banks was arrested for shouting a racist remark.

He was later found guilty of using racist threatening or abusive words or behaviour in a trial at Bolton Magistrates Court on November 26 and yesterday, at Bolton Crown Court, he appealed against the conviction.

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