Category Archives: UK

Shot man not connected to bombing

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stockwell stationA man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday’s London attacks was a Brazilian electrician unconnected to the incidents. The man, who died at Stockwell Tube on Friday, has been named by police as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27.

Dr Azzam Tamimi from the Muslim Association of Britain told BBC News the police should review their procedures. “Frankly it doesn’t matter whether he is a Muslim or not, he is a human being. It is human lives that are being targeted whether by terrorists or whether in this case unfortunately, by people who are supposed to be chasing or catching the terrorists.”

BBC News, 24 July 2005

See also BBC News, 23 July 2005

Seeking a way to combat terrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Britons see the connection between Iraq and their troubles. It’s not just Ken Livingstone, the leftist mayor of London, or rebel MP George Galloway, or some British Muslim leaders. So does a confidential security report. So does a public report by the Royal Institute of International Affairs. So does two-thirds of the public….

“Why are Western governments and the media so afraid to examine whether or not the terrorist Muslim mayhem that we are suffering is the extremist response to what America and its allies are doing in Muslim lands, or are complicit in?”

Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star, 24 July 2005

Letter from Londonistan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Providing haven for terrorists is apparently a small price for the London glitterati to pay for the advantage of feeling proud of their multiculturalism. Their children are sheltered from the massive influx of Muslims into some schools, and their own neighborhoods and social services are unaffected by the pressures created by an unassimilated immigrant population.

“And continued belief in multiculturalism by the elites suits many Muslims just fine. Unlike immigrants who come to America in pursuit of the American dream, many Muslims come to Britain and other European countries determined not to assimilate into cultures they despise. They insist that neither British food is served, nor traditional British tolerance practiced, in the schools their children attend, demands the authorities find reasonable….

“Britain, with the wreckage of 7/7 only recently cleared, even now is willing to allow Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric who defends suicide bombings, to enter the country…. Al-Qaradawi’s reception on his last visit tells us a great deal about the differences between Britain and the United States. London mayor Ken Livingstone, a hard-left politician who blames the 7/7 bombings on U.S.-U.K. foreign policy, embraced al-Qaradawi, told him that he is ‘truly, truly welcome’, hailed him as a ‘leading progressive Muslim’, and denounced al-Qaradawi’s critics for fanning the flames of ‘Islamophobia’.”

Irwin Stelzer of the Sunday Times provides the US Right with a portrait of Britain as a society run by woolly liberals unwilling to wage a sufficiently vigorous “war on terror”.

Weekly Standard, 1 August 2005

London police: subway shooting not connected to attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police announced Saturday that the man officers shot dead on a London subway car Friday morning was “not connected” with the bombing incidents of the day before.

“For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets,” the police said. “The man emerged from a block of flats in the Stockwell area that were under police surveillance as part of the investigation into the incidents on Thursday 21st July,” the statement said. “He was then followed by surveillance officers to the underground station. His clothing and behavior added to their suspicions.”

But Muslim representatives expressed concern that the shooting marked a change of policy in the use of lethal force. “We understand there might have been reasons to do this, but we need to know in what context this man was shot and if it’s true he was shot five times,” said Muhammad Abdul Bari, deputy secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, a coalition of prominent mainstream organizations. “Normally in this country this doesn’t happen.”

Muslims from South Asia have been especially anxious since three of the four men who allegedly carried out the deadly bombings of July 7 were identified as British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent. Officials from the council said Muslims had been calling in all day asking for details of the shooting and worrying that they could be singled out by police.

Washington Post, 23 July 2005

Fundamentally speaking

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims who preach hate are to be deported and subject to new restrictions, Charles Clarke announced in the Commons on Wednesday. So what would the home secretary have to say about stuff like this: ‘Blessed is he who takes your little children and smashes their heads against the rocks’? Or this: ‘O God, break the teeth in their mouths … Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun … The righteous will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.’ No, this is not Islam, it is the Bible. And there is a lot more where that came from.

“Why, then, are so many commentators persuaded that the Qur’an is a manual of hate – compared to the Judeo-Christian scriptures, it is very tame stuff indeed. More disturbing still for Christians and Jews, the nearest scriptural justification for suicide bombings I can think of comes from the book of Judges, where Samson pushes apart the structural supports of a temple packed with people. ‘Let me die with the Philistines,’ he prays, just before the building collapses.”

Giles Fraser in the Guardian, 23 July 2005

Muslims demand explanation for shooting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat BunglawalaThe Muslim Council of Britain demanded an explanation yesterday, after the police shooting of an Asian man at Stockwell Tube station in south London. The Council expressed concerns that there is a “shoot to kill” policy in operation, after the man was shot five times as he fled from the police. MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala warned that Muslims he had spoken to are now “jumpy and nervous.”

“It’s vital that the police give a statement about what occurred and explain why the man was shot dead,” he said. “There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead but they need to make those reasons clear.

“We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot to kill policy,” noted Mr Bunglawala.

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BNP attacks Guardian for employing Hizb ut-Tahrir member

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BNP denounces the Guardian for “employing a trainee journalist who turns out to be a member of a militant Islamist organisation – Hizb ut-Tahrir. This radical group is banned in many western European countries but the Guardian happily allows their trainee to report from Leeds”.

BNP news release, 23 July 2005

Which rather overlooks the fact that yesterday the Guardian succumbed to pressure and sacked the trainee, Dilpazier Aslam, after a campaign (see here) by right-wing bloggers.

Guardian, 22 July 2005

For an informed comment, see Indigo Jo blogs, 23 July 2005

Muslims warn on foreign policy link to terror attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Azzam TamimiSenior Muslims warned the government that it needs to revise British foreign policy if it wants to put an end to terrorist violence.

Dr Azzam Tamimi from the Muslim Association of Britain said that the country is in real danger, insisting that this will continue so long as British forces remained in Iraq. He described the July 7 bombings and the attempted attacks in the capital on Thursday as “horrifying,” but he stressed that it is not enough simply to unite in condemnation.

“The latest developments show that this is a very big thing. It’s not just a few individuals from Leeds,” he said. “It’s time that everybody got serious and engaged in an attempt to prevent it. Part of that would be to understand what’s going on.”

He noted: “7/7, 21/7, and God knows what will happen afterwards. Our lives are in real danger and, it would seem, so long as we are in Iraq and so long as we are contributing to injustices around the world, we will continue to be in real danger. “Tony Blair has to come out of his state of denial and listen to what the experts are saying – our involvement in Iraq is stupid.”

Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh also urged the government to take responsibility for a “political environment” for terrorist attacks.

Morning Star, 23 July 2005