Category Archives: UK

Muslim communities must be treated as allies, not enemies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

To Be a European Muslim“Our best chance lies within the Muslim community itself – in its own capacity for reform and renewal. That’s precisely why the Sun‘s front page on Tuesday demonising the Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan was so inexcusable.

“Here is a man who commands respect across the Muslim world. Here is one of those rare thinkers who can help us plot a way forward for a self-confident Islam securely established in Europe. He is a crucial figure in reaching audiences that non-Muslims cannot, yet the Sun wilfully twisted old quotes to depict him as a supporter of terrorism who should be banned from the UK, a call echoed by the Daily Telegraph yesterday.

“This is irresponsible journalism at its scaremongering worst.”

Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 14 July 2005

NUS statement about Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Earlier this year and as a result of incorrect articles like those found in The Sun last week, the NUS National Executive Committee also condemned Mr Tariq Ramadan for his stance on women, homosexuals and other faith groups. We too were caught up in the hysteria that the media creates around prominent Muslims today.

“Such articles can only contribute to hostility and mistrust of the Muslim communities as a whole. In the past few days, the Muslim Council of Britain have received over 30,000 emails of anti-Muslim abuse. Our own Muslim members have reported being verbally and physically abused. Phrases such as ‘Islamo-nazi nutters’ as used in one of The Sun articles may give rise to even more anti-Muslim racism.

“Last week’s horrific attacks were not an ‘Islamic atrocity’. They were terrorist attacks against ordinary people, Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old and we must work together as one in defiance against them.

“National Union of Students UK”

NUS Online, 14 July 2005

Muslim scholar’s invite defended

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ian BlairMet Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has defended the decision to invite a controversial Muslim scholar to speak at a police-sponsored conference.

Tariq Ramadan’s US visa was revoked in 2004 for “security reasons”. Mr Ramadan has been accused of supporting attacks in Israel and Iraq. He publicly condemned the 11 September and London attacks.

Sir Ian said his was an important voice that would be listened to by young radicalised Muslims. He said Mr Ramadan, who was also previously banned in France, had been visiting the UK for five years. “We can’t understand why he’s banned in the US, (and) he is no longer banned in France,” Sir Ian said.

BBC News, 12 July 2005

Muslim scholar to press on with lectures

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Britons of all races must pull together to promote a common understanding, a leading Muslim scholar said yesterday. Professor Tariq Ramadan said only a shared dialogue between Britain’s different communities could isolate extremists. He told the Guardian that he intends to press ahead with his lecture visit to London and Birmingham despite calls yesterday from the Sun for him to be banned from the country.

Guardian, 13 July 2005

No place for an apologist for atrocities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Reports that an Islamic academic, banned from America and France for justifying terrorism, has been invited to speak in London will leave people of all faiths aghast. Egyptian-born Professor Tariq Ramadan is due to address young Muslims in the capital later this month, his visit funded by the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers… in other words, taxpayers. It seems incredible that anyone with sympathetic views on how and why suicide bombers kill should be heading here just days after terrorist atrocities which claimed dozens of lives.”

Yorkshire Evening Post, 12 July 2005

What is truly incredible is that any serious journalist should parrot accusations from a witchhunting article in the Sun without making the slightest effort to check the facts.

Daily Mail attacks multiculturalism and Tariq Ramadan, applauds Irshad Manji

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The foreign media are awash with references to ‘Londonistan’, describing how this country has become a safe haven for Islamic extremists – ‘a crossroads for terror’ according to the New York Times. They also voice incredulity that the malign impact of multiculturalism and political correctness has for years seen Britain segregated into inward-looking communities that eschew British values while the forces of law and order walk on eggshells, desperate not to offend.

“The Americans have a point. As extremist clerics preach a gospel of hate, we wring our hands but do nothing. Should we then be surprised when impressionable young men heed their words and act, with horrific results?

“Far from silencing the extremists, we welcome them. Tariq Ramadan, an Egyptian academic who has justified acts of terrorism is coming to this country – invited by the Metropolitan Police! It’s beyond parody. This is the same force whose Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said after the bombs: ‘As far as I’m concerned Islamic and terrorist are two words that do not go together.’…

“The author Irshad Manji wrote wisely this week that moderate Muslims must condemn terrorism, abandon the ‘myth’ that Islam has nothing to do with the atrocities, and reject Islamic infallibility.”

Editorial in the Daily Mail, 13 July 2005

Britain’s biggest Muslim group were Al-Qaida admirers – Robert Spencer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer has words of advice for Tony Blair: “I’m sure many Muslims in Britain are indeed decent and law-abiding. But I see no indication that Blair has considered the implications of the New York Times’ January 2005 assertion that the now-disbanded jihadist group Al-Muhajiroun was Britain’s largest Muslim group.”

Perhaps that is because Blair’s advisers, unlike this self-styled expert on jihad and Islamic terrorism, are not so gobsmackingly ignorant as to believe that Omar Bakri’s tiny band of Al-Qaida admirers was ever anything of the sort.

Dhimmi Watch, 13 July 2005

Update:  For Spencer’s reply, see here.

‘Mullah who’s not mad enough’ – Daily Star on Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mullah who’s not mad enough

By Stephen Rigley

Daily Star, 13 July 2005

A fiery Islamic cleric due to preach in London 17 days after the terror attacks has been blasted by Muslims for being “too liberal.”

But Professor Tariq Ramadan’s views are nothing compared to the hate-fulled rants of a string of mad mullahs already in our midst.

Yesterday a row erupted after it emerged Prof Ramadan will preach to young Muslims later this month at taxpayers’ expense.

The Egyptian-born Swiss citizen, 44, has been banned from entering the US and France for allegedly backing terrorism.

But his £9,000 visit to the capital’s Islamic’s Cultural Centre on July 24 is being funded through Scotland Yard and the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Last night the centre’s publication manager Abdul Haq al-Ashanti, 28, said: “Professor Ramadan is not an extremist or militant at all, in fact he’s the complete opposite. He is a real liberal, in fact he is too liberal and I don’t agree with him.”

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Torygraph calls on Muslims to boycott Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamic leaders have commendably called on British Muslims to assist the police in exposing those who plan and commit such outrages. It is now incumbent on ordinary Muslims to follow their leaders’ commands. They should also deny a welcome to the likes of Tariq Ramadan, the Islamist ‘academic’ and supporter of suicide bombing who has been invited – by the Metropolitan Police, no less – to address young Muslims later this month.”

Condescending editorial advice for British Muslims from the Torygraph. Note the contemptuous use of quotation marks around “academic”.

As for the proposal that Muslims should boycott a man who is recognised as one of the leading Islamic thinkers in Europe today, do Telegraph leader writers actually get paid to think up this crap?

Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2005