Category Archives: USA

Three EDL hooligans charged with affray and public order offences

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of the English Defence League (EDL) were joined by American Rabbi Nuchrem Shifren in a protest at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, after an earlier protest outside the Israeli Embassy. London, UK. 24/10/2010Three English Defence League demonstrators have been charged with affray and public order offences after a scuffle with Muslim hecklers at Speakers Corner.

Shortly after their demonstration on Sunday outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, EDL supporters made their way to Hyde Park where Rabbi Nachum Shifren, the so-called “surfing rabbi” from California, gave a short speech. The rabbi had earlier called Muslims “dogs” and told the EDL “We will never surrender to the sword of Islam.”

Rabbi Shifren was heckled by passers-by and scuffles allegedly broke out with EDL members. Bryan Kelso, 28, from Luton, Christopher Long, 38, from Roehampton and Brian Bristow, 37, from Doncaster were arrested and charged with affray and public order offences. The men have been bailed to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on November 3.

Jewish Chronicle, 26 October 2010

Geller pitches new book – a ‘how-to guide to fight creeping sharia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pamela Geller has submitted a proposal for a new book to various publishers. Entitled Stop Islamization of America: A Practical Guide for the Resistance, it will provide a “how-to guide to fight the creeping sharia in our schools, towns, culture, government, and economy. It will elucidate the stealth infiltration of Islamic supremacism into every aspect of American life and show Americans how to fight back.”

Elon Green has the details at Think Progress.

Tea Party leader calls for vote against Keith Ellison because he is ‘the only Muslim member of congress’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Judson PhillipsTea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips sent an email to members on Saturday that said voters should pick independent Lynne Torgerson over Rep. Keith Ellison in the 5th Congressional District race because, “He is the only Muslim member of congress.”

Torgerson, who has been very critical of Muslims in general and Ellison in particular, spoke out about the issue on a Christian radio show last week.

“There are a lot of liberals who need to be retired this year, but there are few I can think of more deserving than Keith Ellison,” wrote Phillips. “Ellison is one of the most radical members of congress. He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of congress. He supports the Counsel [sic] for American Islamic Relations, HAMAS and has helped congress send millions of tax dollars to terrorists in Gaza.”

He continued, “Lynne Torgerson is a good conservative, opposing the lunacy that Ellison brings to congress. Lynne Torgerson is someone we really need to see in congress.”

Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, but he’s not the only one. André Carson has been representing Indiana in the House since 2008.

Phillips is the head of Tea Party Nation, a group that hosted Sarah Palin in February for a national tea party convention held in Tennessee.

Torgerson relayed her views on Islam to Pastor Brad Brandon on his radio program late last week. Torgerson was among candidates Brandon recently endorsed from the pulpit of his Hastings church, triggering a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service.

“I am trying to expose Keith Ellison and his ties to CAIR and radical Islamism,” she said. “He’s been tied to CAIR since college. CAIR was named a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial which was convicted of sending $12 million to the terrorist organization Hamas, and Keith Ellison also helps CAIR raise funds and CAIR helps Keith Ellison raise funds.”

Brandon asked Torgerson about her campaign, and she outlined three issues she is focused on.

“One is to expose Keith Ellison and that he has no business being in our federal government,” she said. “Two, I also am trying to teach people about the problems we have with the ideological political part of Islam as opposed to the religious part. Under the First Amendment, we, of course, have to allow them to worship the moon god Allah but beyond that Islam, also known as Sharia law, is not just a religion. A big part of it is the political ideology that is in conflict with our U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech, equal protection for women, freedom of religion.”

Minnesota Independent, 26 October 2010

See also ColorLines, 26 October 2010

Lutfur Rahman is ‘a vile Islamic supremacist’ with ‘links to jihadist groups’, claims Geller

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pamela Geller UndeadIn an interview at Frontpage Magazine, Pamela Geller tells Jamie Glazov that “a vile Islamic supremacist, Lutfur Rahman, has been elected executive mayor of the London borough of Tower Hamlets. And he has accomplished this through massive voterfraud – isn’t this always how they get their way?” Indeed, according to Geller, Lutfur is not only an Islamic supremacist, he has “links to jihadist groups”.

“What will this mean for Tower Hamlets and Britain in general?” Glazov enquires anxiously. Geller: “It means Sharia for Britain, and the election of Lutfur Rahman is a significant step in that direction.The IFE says that its agenda is to change the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed… from ignorance to Islam’.”

And what is Geller’s source for this crazed Islamophobic rant? Yes, you guessed, it is of course Andrew Gilligan.

Gilligan must be really proud of himself. First a ringing endorsement from Melanie Phillips and now he is being hailed as a “superb investigative journalist” by an American EDL admirer whose politics make mad Mel look relatively sane.

‘Surfing rabbi’ addresses EDL pro-Israel demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nachum Shifren at EDL demoAround 300 members of the far right organisation the English Defence League (EDL) were joined by a US Rabbi associated with the Tea Party at a demonstration “to oppose Islamic fascism”.

Speaking outside the Israeli embassy in London, Rabbi Nachum Shifren stressed he was not here to represent the Tea Party but came as someone “who loves freedom”.

Rabbi Shifren, who is standing for the California state senate, said: “To all my Jewish brothers who have called me a Nazi… I say to them they don’t have the guts to stand up here and take care of business.”

The so-called surfing rabbi said the EDL were the only group in England with moral courage and that politicians would not admit that “because of the Arab petrol dollars”.

Rabbi Shifren added that Muslims “eat each other alive, like the dogs that they are”. He said: “We shall prevail, we will not let them take over our countries. We will never surrender to the sword of Islam.”

Jewish Chronicle, 25 October 2010

More photos at Demotix here and here.

Over at Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller hails the alliance between Shifren and the EDL as “part of the growing interaction between the EDL and the counter-jihad movement in the US that I enthusiastically support”.

Texas State Board of Education resolution claims school textbooks favour Islam over Christianity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Children are being taught to like Islam and hate Christianity, according to elected officials in Texas, who say they’re hellbent on stopping it. And what these 14 people decide could influence textbooks for the entire nation.

Members of the state’s Board of Education will vote on a new resolution on Friday that argues textbooks dedicate more time to teaching the Muslim faith, while offering less information about Christian history. The information is also skewed, the resolution states, showing Islam in a positive light while demonizing Christianity.

“There’s a problem and this resolution brings attention to it,” Republican board member Don McLeroy told Fox News on Wednesday. “Academia wants to lean over backwards to be politically correct and not be labeled ethnocentric, so it’s kind of a cultural relativism.”

The resolution, proposed by Odessa, Tex., school board member Randy Rives, who tried and failed to get elected to the state board earlier this year, calls Christianity “one of the world’s great religions,” and requires the State Board of Education to reject social studies textbooks which “offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world’s major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and/or by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others.”

The decision by the Texas State Board of Education could influence the rest of the country, since it is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the nation. This means publishers generally skew their books to fall in line with the demands of the Lone Star State, thus shaping the language in textbooks for millions of students across the United States.

New York Daily News, 23 September 2010

See also CBS News, 23 September 2010

Seattle woman charged with hate crime against two Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Seattle Muslim women said they were simply trying to fill up at a gas station in Tukwila on Saturday when another woman started yelling slurs, kicked one woman and slammed a car door on her leg, and then pushed the other.

“I’m terrified, I’m crying,” said Imaan, one of the two Muslim women, recounting the incident during a news conference Thursday. “Never in my life have I experienced this kind of hatred and physical assault.” Imaan, 23, and her aunt, Maryan, 34, both American citizens of Somali descent, asked to be identified by their first names only, for fear of reprisal.

They said they were trying to get gas shortly before 6 p.m. at an ARCO AM/PM gas station and minimart on Tukwila International Boulevard. The pump didn’t appear to be working. A woman who was watching started calling them “suicide bomber,” asking if they were going to bomb this country, and telling them to “go back to your country,” Imaan said.

King County prosecutors identified the woman as 37-year-old Jennifer Leigh Jennings, also known as Jennifer Leigh Adams, of Burien, and on Thursday charged her with two felony counts of malicious harassment under the state’s hate-crime law.

Imaan said she went inside to talk to the clerk about the gas pump, and when she came back out, she saw Jennings slam a car door on her aunt’s leg, pull off her aunt’s headscarf and kick her. Imaan told Jennings to leave them alone and Jennings pushed her so hard that she fell, she said. Imaan said she was frantic, yelling for help from about a dozen or so bystanders who didn’t do anything, she said.

Seattle Times, 21 October 2010

Geller, the Tea Party and Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A report has been released by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People entitled Tea Party Nationalism, exposing the links between the Tea Party movement and white supremacists, anti-immigration groups, “birthers” and other extremists. It contains a section headed “Pamela Geller and Islamophobia” which examines the role of the Atlas Shrugs blogger in promoting anti-Muslim bigotry in assocation with the Tea Party. We reproduce it here.

Pamela Geller and Islamophobia

From the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights report Tea Party Nationalism

The term “Islamophobia” was defined in a 1997 Runnymede Trust Report as “unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” Among the characteristic elements of Islamophobia highlighted in the report:

Islam is monolithic and cannot adapt to new realities; Islam does not share common values with other major faiths; Islam as a religion is inferior to the West; It is archaic, barbaric, and irrational; Islam is a religion of violence and supports terrorism; and Islam is a violent political ideology.

In fact, alongside racism, anti-Semitism, and nativism, the elements of Islamophobia have found their way into the Tea Party Movement. Tea Party leaders and members have employed anti-Muslim language. With strong Tea Party ties, Pamela Geller stands out in this regard.

As noted earlier, Geller was a featured speaker at a Tea Party Patriots-sponsored convention in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in May. Despite weeks of pressure from community groups who raised concerns about Geller’s history of Islamophobia, the convention organizers refused to reconsider their invitation to Geller.

Geller also spoke at the anti-immigrant rally in Arizona sponsored by Tea Party Nation in August 2010. She is expected to be speaking at the Tea Party Nation Unity Convention in Las Vegas in October.

Geller maintains a tight-knit trio of organizational fronts: Atlas Shrugs, SIOA (Stop Islamization of America), and the Freedom Defense Initiative. All are listed as official “partner” organizations of the ResistNet Tea Party faction. She has appeared on the ResistNet radio program that was heavily promoted by ResistNet leader Darla Dawald.

With leaders like Geller, it is not surprising to find language on a ResistNet Tea Party website that denigrates an entire grouping of people because of their faith. “We are at a point of having to take a stand against all Muslims. There is no good or bad Muslim. There is [sic] only Muslims and they are embedded in our government, military and other offices… What more must we wait for to take back this country of ours…”

Geller, like many Tea Partiers is also a birther. In addition to claiming that Obama’s birth certificate is a “forgery,” she has called President Obama a “third worlder and a coward” who’s “appeas[ing] his Islamic overlords.” She has perpetuated the lie that President Obama is Muslim.

Geller has referred to Obama as “The Muslim president.” Media Matters for America documented that Geller’s blog contains 267 posts tagged, “Muslim in the White House?” She’s gone as far as to seriously make the argument that Barack Obama is the illegitimate childof Malcolm X.

Among the many inflammatory statements Geller has posted on her blog, Atlas Shrugs, she has written that: “It is increasingly clear that the most divisive President in history is itching for a civil war. And at the rate he is going, he is going to get one – if he continues to ignore the will of the American people.”

Islam ‘advocates beheadings, forced conversions and paedophilia’, Murfreesboro Islamic Center opponent tells court

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Not WelcomeDay five of a hearing into whether to stop construction of an approved Islamic Center of Murfreesboro mosque continued with the opponents’ attorney trying to paint the project as a doorway to Islamic domination and tyrannical Shariah law in the United States. Attorney Joe Brandon Jr. called several witnesses on Thursday who tried to connect the Islamic Center to terrorism and plots to overthrow democracy.

Murfreesboro resident Jeanetta Alford was characteristic of Brandon’s approach in explaining her opposition to the mosque. She said she believes that the teaching of Islam violates the United States Constitution because it advocates beheadings, forced conversions and pedophilia. When asked if she would like to be rid of mosques in America, she responded, “That would be wonderful, probably.”

Rutherford County’s attorneys countered that there’s zero proof that the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has broken any law. “Has the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro beheaded anyone?” asked County Attorney James Cope. “No, they have not,” Alford replied. Later, she said that the center wasn’t fully practicing Shariah law “because they can’t do it yet.”

The Tennessean, 22 October 2010

See also the Daily New Journal, which reports another witness, one Lisa Moore, as saying that “the religion part of Islam is only about 30 percent and ‘the rest of it is about killing non-believers’.”

WSMV Nashville reports the following exchange between Brandon and Randy Groce, an investigator with the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department:

“Is Islam a religion?” Brandon said.

“In my opinion, yes,” said Groce. “They have a belief in a deity, an afterlife.”

“You say an afterlife. Is this the same afterlife that, like, when you yell, ‘Allah akbar,’ and blow up several people, and you get several virgins – is that the afterlife you’re talking about?” said Brandon.