Category Archives: UK

SSP on London bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Scottish Socialist Party today sends it’s condolences to the families of those killed and injured in today’s bombings in London.

The SSP condemns outright the bombings which were targeted at working class Londoners going about their daily lives. Many of those dead and injured would have participated in anti-war protests and would have taken part in the Make Poverty History protests over the past week.

Meanwhile, the men responsible for the war on Iraq and the massacre of 100,000 civilians were safely cocooned behind fortified walls 500 miles away, protected by thousands of police and armed forces.

Today’s horrific events further expose the falsity of the claims by Tony Blair and George Bush that the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq have turned the world into a safer place. Exactly the opposite: the world is now darker and more dangerous than ever before.

Today’s wave of destruction also underlines the futility of trying to defeat terror by ever more repressive legislation. As the escalating violence in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrates, even the most ferocious repression cannot quell violence and terror.

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Muslim leaders join condemnation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders have condemned the terror attacks on London and called for full co-operation with police.
Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Inayat Bunglawala called on worshippers to pray for victims at Friday prayers.

And Ahmed Sheikh, president of the Muslim Association of Britain, said he feared a backlash and added that the Muslim community would feel less safe. He warned that Muslims, especially women in headscarves, might fall prey to vigilante attacks..

BBC News, 7 July 2005

See also Islam Online, 7 July 2005

Mad Mel mauls Met

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Now There’s a Surprise Department. Melanie Phillips joins the attack on Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair for his stand against Islamophobia:

“… this case had nothing to do with understanding or respecting diversity. It reflected instead the neurotic hypersensitivity which inflates minor error into the hanging offence of racial insult – our modern witch-hunt, in which the slightest deviation from permitted speech is regarded as a heresy to be punished by excommunication and banishment.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 5 July 2005

You can just imagine what Phillips’s response would be if the officers concerned had made anti-semitic remarks. Muslims, however, are apparently fair game when it comes to backward jibes against minority communities.

Attack on Ian Blair continues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A letter in the Sun (4 July 2005) reads: “Arrogant Sir Ian Blair is unrepentant about the racism case, saying the Met can’t expect to win the confidence of the Muslim community if they ignored issues like this. Doesn’t he care about losing the confidence of the white community if he is blatantly pro-Muslim and anti-white?”

In a letter to the Guardian, Glen Smyth of the Metropolitan Police Federation complains that: “The commissioner continues to assert that the comments of one of the officers involved in the recent high-profile employment-tribunal race-discrimination case taken against the service by three white officers were ‘Islamophobic’: ‘That language was gratuitous, offensive and deliberate’.”

Which of course is exactly what it was. Smyth’s claim that he and his colleagues in the Police Federation “understand and endorse the need to understand and respect all of London’s communities” rings a little hollow.

More nonsense about the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

behzti“Picture this scenario. A new play opens in London that centres around taboo issues relating to religion. For argument’s sake, a rape in a Sikh Gurdwara. Protests follow, ‘community leaders’ demand it be shut down and some threaten legal action. Six months ago, when the Behzti play controversy blew up, those threats of legal action amounted to hot air.

“However if the government’s bill to outlaw religious hatred passes through its third reading next week, those empty threats would suddenly become very real. In essence Labour aims to reward the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) with a piece of legislation in return for the Muslim vote during the election.”

So Sunny Hundal claims: Asians in Media, 4 July 2005

The level of ignorance displayed by opponents of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill never ceases to amaze. It seems to have escaped Sunny’s attention that Sikhs, as members of a mono-ethnic faith, are already covered by the ban on incitement to racial hatred in the 1986 Public Order Act. If it could be reasonably argued that “Behzti” incited hatred against Sikhs, then a prosecution could have been brought under Section 20(1) of that Act, which states:

“If a public performance of a play is given which involves the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, any person who presents or directs the performance is guilty of an offence if –
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances (and, in particular, taking the performance as a whole) racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.”

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill merely seeks to amend that section of the 1986 Act by substituting “racial or religious hatred” for “racial hatred”. This would have the effect of extending its provisions to cover members of multi-ethnic faiths, such as Muslims or Hindus. If the Bill becomes law, the opportunities for Sikhs to persuade the Attorney-General to prosecute a play like “Behzti” will be … precisely the same as they are at present.