Category Archives: UK

British Council official in anti-Muslim row

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim groups and individuals have flooded the British Council with complaints after learning that one of its senior press officers allegedly wrote controversial Sunday Telegraph articles attacking “the black heart of Islam”.

The government-funded body, which recently commissioned a handbook on Islam “to prevent ignorant comments about Muslims being made in [the] national press”, has suspended Harry Cummins while it investigates the claims, which were first disclosed in the Guardian Diary.

He denies writing the articles, which have prompted calls for the Press Complaints Commission to intervene. They appeared under the byline “Will Cummins”, which the Sunday Telegraph later described as a pseudonym.

Muslim organisations say the comment pieces incite racial and religious hatred, and the British Council describes the articles as deeply offensive.

But the Sunday Telegraph has refused to rule out publishing further contributions from the author of the articles. Its editor, Dominic Lawson, told the Guardian that he did not regret printing them.

Guardian, 6 August 2004

British MPs regret discrimination against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Senior British parliamentarians admitted anti-terrorism laws are being used “disproportionately” against Muslims, as the community members feel increasing persecuted after a wave of arrests and hostile media campaign.

The Labour peer Lord Judd, a committee member, said that the arrests of a dozen young men on Tuesday, August 3, underlined fears that anti-terrorism legislation of 2001 discriminated against Muslims, The Independent reported on Thursday, August 5.

“That is a worrying situation in terms of the confidence of Islamic citizens in Britain that they are not all under suspicion,” Judd told the BBC.

This came as the Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights warned in a statement that the Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows the indefinite detention of foreign nationals without trial, could have a “corrosive” long-term effect on human rights in Britain.

There was “discrimination inherent” in the Act, said the committee, saying that the government was forced to derogate – or opt out – of its international human rights obligations.

“We also note there is mounting evidence the powers under the Terrorism Act [of 2000] are being used disproportionately against members of the Muslim community,” it added.

Islam Online, 5 August 2004

No, we don’t want to conquer the world

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The ferocity of recent attacks on Muslims and Islam in the mainstream British media has led many to question what is driving these attempts to incite hatred and fear of our community. Anyone reading the British press over the past few weeks might be excused for imagining that the country is threatened by hordes of Muslims living within its borders, determined to subvert British values and convert its people to Islam, by hook or by crook.”

Anas Altikriti in the Guardian, 5 August 2004

UK Muslims react to terror raids

Posted on by Eddie Truman

As police continue to detain a dozen young men arrested in anti-terrorism raids across the UK, Britain’s Muslim community has reacted with dismay.

Detaining the men, all of Asian origin, has prompted complaints in some Muslim circles that they are being unfairly singled out.

Fewer than one in five of the more than 500 people – most of them Muslim – arrested under terrorism laws since September 11, 2001 have been charged with a terrorist offence, according to government figures.

BBC News, 4 August 2004

Church leader criticises Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A religious leader from Norwich was today widely condemned after he branded the Islamic faith “evil”.

Rev Alan Clifford, pastor of the Norwich Reformed Church, waded into the controversy surrounding anti-Muslim remarks made by the British National Party in an undercover BBC documentary.

Today, religious and race leaders in Norwich condemned his backing of claims that Islam is “a monster in our midst”.

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Attacks on Islamic institutes are baseless – MAB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“British Muslims are beginning to become accustomed to attacks on their most beloved institutions. Over the last year, they’ve seen right-wing and Zionist assaults on their scholars (Shaikh Qaradawi), their charities (Interpal), their religion itself, and their organisations and leading individuals.”

The Muslim Association of Britain replies to the Times report “British Islam colleges ‘link to terrorism’”.

MAB press release, 29 July 2004

British Islam colleges ‘link to terrorism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Two British universities have given their approval to a pair of Islamic colleges with close links to fundamentalist scholars and political movements…. Tim Collins, the Shadow Education Secretary, said he was extremely concerned about the colleges. ‘There needs to be an urgent investigation by the Charity Commission, the Department of Education and the Home Office into the exact nature of these institutions, how they came to be sited in the UK and whe-ther their presence threatens peaceful community relations in this country,’ he said. ”

The Times, 29 July 2004

The triumph of the East

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spectator Muslims are Coming“There’s no plot, says Anthony Browne: Islam really does want to conquer the world.”

So reads the standfirst to Browne’s Spectator article.

The article concludes: “In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West.”

Spectator, 24 July 2004

Will Cummins in Torygraph: This way lies riots

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It’s not unusual to find sections of the British press displaying Islamophobic or racist sentiments – we all know about the Daily Express and its long-standing vendetta against immigrants, and at the other end of the scale Polly Toynbee in the Guardian with her hostility to all religion, at least when it comes in contact with the state. Recently though, the Daily Telegraph has been playing host to a far more extreme anti-Muslim bigot calling himself Will Cummins, and some of the letters in reply to him have been worse still. It’s real foaming-at-the-mouth stuff.”

Yusuf Smith at Indigo Jo Blogs.