Category Archives: USA

Woman arrested for wearing hijab sues Georgia city

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lisa_ValentineDOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — A Muslim woman who was arrested after she refused to remove her headscarf in a west Georgia courthouse filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Douglasville and the officers who arrested her, contending they violated her constitutional rights.

Lisa Valentine said authorities trampled on her First Amendment rights in December 2008 when she was ordered to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court after she refused to remove her hijab at a courtroom. She was released in less than a day, but her arrest infuriated Muslim rights activists and prompted changes in Georgia’s courtroom policy.

“I hope that no person of faith will ever have to experience the type of egregious treatment I suffered at any Georgia courthouse because of the expression of my beliefs,” said Valentine, whose lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Georgia chapter.

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CNN’s Fareed Zakaria blasts Glenn Beck’s claim that 10 per cent of Muslims are terrorists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Glenn Beck and Fareed Zakaria are best known as political pundits, but this week the two are locked head-to-head in a battle over math.

Beck launched the feud by claiming on his radio show last week that 10% of Muslims are terrorists. “What is the number of Islamic terrorists? 1 percent? I think it’s closer to 10%, but the rest of the P.C. world will tell you, ‘Oh no, it’s minuscule,'” the Fox host said.

Beck first made the claim in his 2003 book The Real America, in which he said “Ninety percent of Islam is peaceful. Ten percent of Islam wants us dead.”

Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-born journalist and the former editor ofNewsweek International, fired back at Beck’s claims on his CNN show “GPS” on Sunday night.

“Let’s do a bit of math here,” said Zakaria, demonstrating his calculations on a chalkboard. “There are 1,570,000,000 Muslims worldwide. Take ten percent of those Muslims and you get 157,000,000. That’s how many Muslim terrorists Glenn Beck is suggesting there are in the world.”

He went on to attack Beck’s math, and his methods. “Beck wondered why ‘Oh why this wasn’t receiving any media coverage?'” Zakaria continued. “Well let me suggest one reason. It is total nonsense. A figure made up by Glenn Beck with absolutely no basis in fact.”

New York Daily News, 13 December 2010

EDL tells Terry Jones he’s not welcome

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Luton February 2011The EDL have issued a press release announcing that they have withdrawn their invitation to Pastor Terry Jones to speak at their rally in Luton in February. The EDL state:

“we strongly disapprove of burning the Koran, precisely because we believe in those principles of free speech and free expression. We do not believe the Koran should be burned, but rather read, so that people come to understand its inherent violence, supremacism, and hatred and contempt for non-Muslims. It is essential that people know what the Koran teaches, so they can see how far its teachings are from the free traditions of England that we have pledged our lives to uphold and defend.”

Perhaps they should tell that to their own members, who evidently are far from clear that this is the EDL’s policy. And shouldn’t Nick Griffin be given credit by the EDL, since this argument is lifted directly from the BNP’s website?

The EDL offer the following additional explanation:

“The EDL is extremely proud of its diverse support base including it’s primary base of geographical divisions from all across England encompassing much ethnic diversity. In addition we have specific divisions drawn from groups particularly threatened by encroaching Sharia: a Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Division; a Jewish Division and recently a Pakistani Christian Division. The EDL also enjoys the active participation and support of many former members of the Armed Forces. In light of our strong commitment to these groups and some of the Pastor’s statements and associations, we feel it inappropriate to offer Pastor Terry Jones an invitation to attend an EDL demonstration.”

Oddly, the press release concludes with a link to a CBS report about the Westboro Baptist Church picketing the funeral of a US serviceman killed in Afghanistan, which would suggest that the EDL have confused Terry Jones with Fred Phelps. Could they really be that stupid? On past experience, yes they certainly could.

If the EDL are worried that association with Jones might tarnish their hard-earned reputation for moderation, they might be advised to deal with some of the hate-filled racists in their own ranks. The first comment that follows the press release on the EDL’s Facebook page reads: “I hate stinkin muslims… Fuck off home.!!!!”

Postscript:  Or perhaps, to be charitable, the EDL meant to link to a report about the support given by Jones’s Dove World Outreach Center to a Westboro Baptist Church protest outside a liberal church in Gainesville last April.

Temecula pastor says mosque would be ‘frontal assault’ on his church

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A California pastor is warning about a “frontal assault” against Christianity in the wake of a planning commission’s overwhelming approval of a proposed mosque.

A 25,000-square-foot mosque to be built in Temecula Valley has gained unanimous support from the local planning commission, despite concerns from citizens and critics who say the facility may be a safe-haven for terrorists. William Rench, pastor of neighboring Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula Valley, feels his congregation’s attempts to voice their opposition to the planning commission were futile.

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Heinz-Christian Strache wants to build links with Tea Party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The head of Austria’s far right Freedom Party says he wants to meet with representatives of the ultraconservative U.S. tea party movement.

Heinz-Christian Strache described the movement as “highly interesting” and claims his party has received and will accept invitations from the United States.

Strache made the comments in an interview with Austria’s Die Presse newspaper published Sunday. Spokesman Karl Heinz Gruensteidl confirmed the remarks but declined to provide more details.

The anti-immigration Freedom Party is the third largest political force in Austria’s parliament and recently saw a surge in support in local elections in Vienna, the country’s capital, following a campaign laced with anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Associated Press, 12 December 2010

‘Muslims for Bush’ founder defects to Democrats because of anti-Muslim bigotry in Republican party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muhammad Ali HasanMuhammad Ali Hasan, a member of the wealthy and influential Colorado Republican Hasan family and a past state House and treasurer candidate, said he is switching parties.

Speaking at the University of Colorado-Boulder on his experience growing up Muslim in the American West and later in conversation with the Colorado Independent, Hasan said he is ending his affiliation with the party for the bigotry he believes has shaped Republican politics over the last year. The FOX News regular and founder of Muslims for Bush said he met recently with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the controversial Democratic leader won him over.

Hasan said he felt alienated between national Republican leaders on one side railing against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and gays and illegal immigrants and, on the other, state Republican delegates convinced that as a candidate for treasurer he was angling to install sharia finance laws. He said the GOP convention in May was a low point. “You experience bigotry sometimes but I often just think it’s probably my personality that the person doesn’t like. At the convention, though, that was the first time I felt the real thing. It was the worst experience of my life.”

Hasan suspects a whisper campaign swept the convention, sounding a warning against placing a Muslim in charge of investing the state’s revenues. “Some goons were telling people that there’s a passage in the Koran that encourages Muslims to lie, that lying is considered a good thing in the service of advancing a Muslim or sharia agenda. I don’t know who was behind the rumor, but I’ve read the Koran, and I don’t know what they were talking about.”

He said the weekend of the convention he watched hundreds of supporters fall away. Delegate after delegate approached him and mentioned the Koran and said in so many words that they weren’t sure they could trust him. “It hurt. People who had said they were voting for me were now coming up to me and saying ‘You know, I hear you could be lying to us.’ I was shocked. I got the courage to approach some of them, people I had talked to and who said they were voting for me. Here they were wearing J.J. Ament stickers. I was like, you know, wow, and they said ‘But how do I know you’re not going to assert some form of sharia law against Colorado?'”

Hasan said he was deflated after talking to one woman at length. “I told her I started Muslims for Bush. I’m proud of that. I told her I have been a vocal fiscal conservative for years. I said I’ve given to Republican candidates on the federal and state level. I helped get Republican candidates elected to House seats in 2008 when Democrats were winning everything… Finally I asked her ‘There’s nothing I can say to win your vote because my name is Muhammad, am I right?’ and she said ‘Yeah, that’s probably right.'”

Colorado Independent, 9 December 2010

EDL invites Pastor Terry Jones to speak at Luton demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terry Jones

Home secretary Theresa May is under intense pressure to ban controversial anti-Muslim preacher Terry Jones from Britain after far-right activists said he had agreed to address them at a demonstration about “the evils of Islam”.

The English Defence League (EDL) said it was “proud to announce” that the US pastor, who caused outrage with plans to burn the Qur’an on this year’s anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, would be attending the event in Luton in early February. Jones confirmed that he would be arriving in the UK. The pastor’s website said he intended to visit the EDL’s “biggest demonstration to date” in February. The website stated: “During the protest, Dr Terry Jones will speak against the evils and destructiveness of Islam in support of the continued fight against the Islamification of England and Europe.”

President Barack Obama warned in September that Jones’s planned Qur’an burnings would be a “recruitment bonanza” for al-Qaida and the US state department said it would put the country’s citizens at risk across the world.

The EDL announced Jones’s planned visit on its Facebook site yesterday, saying he would attend “our biggest demo to date” and describing it as “the big one”. There are fears that copies of the Qur’an could be burned by extremists.

The last time the EDL marched in Luton, 250 of their supporters went on the rampage through an Asian area of the town. Shop windows were smashed, cars overturned and a number of people were attacked. Thirty-five people were arrested as a result of the violence. Eleven people were arrested yesterday as 500 EDL supporters marched in Peterborough.

News of Jones’s planned visit comes as the head of the police intelligence unit on domestic extremism reveals that the EDL and related splinter groups have become his biggest concern.

Adrian Tudway, the national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, told the Observer: “We look at the extreme right and left, but currently our biggest single area of business are the various groups which call themselves defence leagues. These defence leagues can be found across England.”

The unit is monitoring a “number of individuals” connected to extreme rightwing groups, details of which are disseminated to local police forces.

Observer, 12 December 2010

See also “Koran-protest pastor Terry Jones may be banned from UK”, BBC News, 12 December 2010

Further details at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

Update:  See Jon Cruddas, “Ban the hateful Pastor Jones”, Comment is Free, 12 December 2010

Alabama store owner posts sign saying ‘BBQ PORK RESTURANT IS SAFEST NO MUSLIMS INSIDE’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alabama 'No Muslims' signThe fuss over a sign in Alabama at an electronics store reading “BBQ PORK RESTURANT (sic) IS SAFEST NO MUSLIMS INSIDE” shocked its longtime owner who said he doesn’t understand why it’s such a big deal.

Electronic Repair Company owner Chuck Biddinger, who put up the sign last week, said he meant the message as a joke. After all, he said, it wasn’t even the most offensive one he had ever posted.

That award goes to a sign he posted last May that read “A dog is wiser than a woman – it does not bark at its master,” earned heat from domestic violence groups in Alabama. “The women’s groups went ballistic,” he told the Daily News when he picked up the phone at his East Lake, Ala., shop.

But he said this sign, which has garnered national attention, has gotten more positive reaction than negative – and he has no plans to apologize to anyone offended. “I have gotten a few complaints about it, but for every one complaint about it I’ve had, 10 people tell me that they like it and support it,” he said.

He told local television station ABC 33/40 that while it was meant as a lighthearted joke, it was true. “Muslims do not eat pork,” he told the television station. “It’s a known fact that Muslims have tried to commit crimes in this country.”

New York Daily News, 10 December 2010