Category Archives: UK

Do we want the Turkish peasantry here? Torygraph racist thinks not

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… one of the symptoms of the chronic immigration syndrome is that the intelligentsia of the host-country refuses to discuss, or even permit discussion, of its long-term consequences. Instead there is much witless, liberal maundering about the unassailable virtues of a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-ethos society.

“Well, my little liberal friends, it hasn’t turned out like that. Opinion polls show that 11 per cent of Britain’s two million Muslims approved of the attacks of 9/11, and 40 per cent support Osama Bin Laden. Nearly 1,200 British Muslims have been trained in terror camps in Afghanistan; three British Muslims have become suicide bombers. British police are – finally – investigating 122 possible ‘honour killings’ of women in immigrant communities.”

Kevin Myers in the Sunday Telegraph, 19 December 2004

More Daily Telegraph Islamophobia by Charles Moore

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“It will be said, and it is true, that the MAB does not represent moderate Muslims. But one has to wonder, different though their tone undoubtedly is and personally decent though most of them clearly are, whether moderate Muslims really disagree with the extremist doctrines. I have not been able, for example, to get the MCB (the main moderate organisation) unequivocally to condemn the killing or kidnapping of British soldiers in Iraq.”

Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph, 18 December 2004

‘Academic freedom threatened’ over Muslim scholar’s visa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Mayor of London’s human rights adviser Yasmin Qureshi has expressed concern about the treatment of respected Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan by the US authorities, after Mr Ramadan resigned his professorship at an American university following the withdrawal of his visa. Swiss-born Professor Ramadan is one of the most respected philosophers of religion and conflict resolution. He was named by “Time” magazine as one of the world’s top 100 influential thinkers this year.

Mr Ramadan spoke at City Hall this year in favour of a woman’s right to choose to wear the Muslim headscarf (hijab). In July his American visa was revoked under the Patriot Act, adopted after the terrorist attacks on September 11, thus preventing him from taking up his post at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He has so far been refused a new visa.

The failure of the US authorities to issue him with a visa has led him to announce his resignation of two professorships at the university – professor of Islamic studies in the classics department and professor of religion, conflict, and peace-building – and he has accused the American authorities of attacking academic freedom.

Yasmin Qureshi said: “The withdrawal of Tariq Ramadan’s visa is a de facto attack on academic freedom in the U.S.A and it appears to send a signal to Muslims all over the world that their respected academics and scholars are not welcome in the US. The US authorities have so far failed to provide an explanation for the withdrawal of Tariq Ramadan’s visa. If this can happen to a mainstream figure such as Professor Ramadan then Muslims everywhere will feel that it could happen to them. The Muslim population in London will have every right to feel uncertain about whether they are now welcome visitors to the USA. As we have already seen, London resident Yusuf Islam was ejected from the USA earlier this year, again with no reason given. There is a very real danger that exclusions and bans of such mainstream figures will play into the hands of extremists.”

The mayor of London announced the appointment of Yasmin Qureshi as his human rights adviser earlier this week, asking her to address the problem of Islamophobia as one her responsibilities.

GLA press release, 17 December 2004

London mayor picks Muslim woman human rights adviser

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, has appointed a Muslim woman as his new human rights advisor, a decision welcomed by the sizable Muslim community in Britain.

Yasmin Qureshi, a barrister whose experience includes heading the Criminal Legal Section of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Department of Judicial Administration in Kosovo, will replace Graham Tope, who held the unpaid post during the mayor’s first term, said a press release posted on the official website for the Mayor of London.

“I am impressed with Yasmin’s serious approach to human rights, both in terms of the issues she has taken up and also her professional experience. She will bring an extra dimension to the work of my office in this field,” Livingstone said.

He asked Qureshi to include the issue of religious rights and freedoms as part of her work and to reflect the views of London communities who have concerns about the new French law banning religious symbols in state schools.

“I am pleased to have a Muslim woman advising me and carrying this work forward at a time when many Muslims feel that their rights around the world are not being addressed, and I am sure that she will take up these issues, such as a woman’s right to choose to wear the hijab, with vigor.”

Islam Online, 16 December 2004

Social Discrimination: Across the Muslim Divide

Posted on by Bob Pitt

‘Social Discrimination: Across the Muslim Divide’ – A report by Saied R. Ameli, Manzur Elahi, and Arzu Merali for the Islamic Human Rights Commission.

The report is the second in the series British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government. It aims to chart the key areas of concern for Muslims and what they as participants in the social order expect the government’s engagement with them to be. The report looks at the nature and extent of general discrimination experienced by Muslims in their day to day life. Following the event of 9/11 there has been sudden upsurge of negative behaviour towards Muslims in Britain. In an attempt to find out the causes and the extent of general discrimination it employs theories of social psychology and communication; at the empirical level it employs both the results of a nationwide survey of nearly 1200 Muslims, qualitative answers of 40 Muslims and a number of case studies.

Islamic Human Rights Commission press release, 16 December 2004

Seumas Milne takes on the militant secularists

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“For the left not to have stood with Muslims would have been a real betrayal. But for showing solidarity and working with Muslim organisations – whether in the anti-war movement or in campaigns against Islamophobia – leftwing groups and politicians such as the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, are now routinely damned by liberal secularists (many of whom have been keen supporters of the war in Iraq) for ‘betraying the enlightenment’ and making common cause with ‘Islamofascists’, homophobes and misogynists.”

Seumas Milne in Guardian, 16 December 2004

We need protection from the pedlars of religious hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain replies to Charles Moore, in defence of the proposed law banning incitement to religious hatred.

Daily Telegraph, 14 December 2004

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is not impressed: “What this law does is make Muslims a protected class, beyond criticism, precisely at the moment when Britain needs to examine, honestly and thoughtfully, the implications of having admitted into the country a large number of people with greater allegiance to the Sharia than to the present British state. The long night for Britain is just beginning.”

Dhimmi Watch, 15 December 2005

Racists in vicious anti-mosque fight

Posted on by Eddie Truman

BNP anti-mosque leaflet SwanseaRacists have launched a vicious hate campaign in Swansea to protest against the opening of a new mosque. Thousands of leaflets have been pushed through letter boxes in the Sandfields area of the city to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment, it is claimed.

The area has been targeted by doorstep campaigners from the British National Party because of plans to open a new mosque in St Helen’s Road. Activists from the party found out about the plan to convert the old St Andrews United Reformed Church from a leading Islamic website.

The building is currently derelict after it was gutted by arsonists two years ago. Conversion into a mosque would save it from being pulled down. Planning permission from the council would not be needed because the building would be retained as a place of worship.

According to the BNP website more than 70 far right extremists have already met in the city to discuss their plan of action. The Post can reveal that only last month party chairman Nick Griffin and the national treasurer John Walker visited the city to canvass the area.

Continue reading →

BNP leader held by police over racist remarks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police have arrested the leader of the far-right British National Party after he was secretly filmed calling Islam “a wicked, vicious faith”. The arrest of Nick Griffin, one-time host of French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, was warmly welcomed by Muslims, some of whom said the government should ban the BNP altogether.

Police arrested Griffin, 45, at his family farmhouse in Wales and took him to West Yorkshire, where officers are conducting a major probe into the activities of BNP members. Griffin, later released on bail until next March, told reporters on Tuesday: “This is an electoral scam to get the Muslim block vote back for the Labour Party.”

Griffin’s arrest came two days after police detained the party’s 70-year-old founding chairman John Tyndall. They have now arrested 12 people on suspicion of incitement to commit racial hatred since the investigation began five months ago. None has been charged.

The police probe was triggered by a BBC documentary, broadcast in July, which included footage of Griffin giving a speech in the northern town of Keighley in which he railed against Islam and its holy book, the Koran. “This wicked, vicious faith has expanded through a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago until it’s now sweeping country after country,” he said.

Continue reading →

Turn again, Dick Warrington

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel at Crooked Timber has a thoughtful article on the proposed religious hatred law, even if he comes down against it:

“This is a bad and illiberal Bill, but most of the opposition to it is pretty ill-informed and quite ill-conceived. It’s got nothing to do with giving Abu Hamza the right to censor your every weblog post and everything to do with preserving public order in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, ‘Islamophobia’ is not a fictitious problem in as much as there are quite clearly ‘critiques’ of Islam which are being used as a fig leaf for outright racism and the self-styled defenders of ‘Enlightenment values’ don’t seem to regard this as any problem at all of theirs. In fact, an awful lot of people commenting on this issue don’t appear to be able to keep a decent degree of separation in their own minds between genuine civil liberties issues and just randomly having a go at Muslims for being backward and uncivilised. And if I was a Muslim, I daresay I’d be pretty hacked off at that.”

Crooked Timber, 13 December 2004