The threat to the “British way of life”, William F. Buckley asserts, “is not, this time around, in the shape of a continental army threatening invasion or Nazi bombers darkening the sky. The threat now is the Muslim immigration”. His solution? “It is time for the mother of parliaments to look unruly, unassimilable creeds in the face and say: No more.”
Category Archives: USA
Florida televangelist loses show after CAIR complaint
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — A Christian televangelist in Florida who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.
Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station’s owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, “Live Prayer with Bill Keller.”
In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a “1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell” and called the Prophet Mohammed a “murdering pedophile.” He also called the Quran a “book of fables and a book of lies.”
Associated Press, 24 August 2007
See also CAIR news release, 24 August 2007
Update: “They’re just after censorship, pure and simple,” Keller said in an interview with www.bannedmagazine.com. “The crazy thing is all I did was tell the truth about Islam from the Biblical perspective. It’s a false religion and there was no prophet named Mohammed. He’s a false prophet… I’m just lost, don’t these people own remote controls? It’s past the point of being offended. They just want to silence people who take a hard Biblical view of the world.”
More on Easter egg ban
Remember the “Muslims want ban on Easter eggs” nonsense from Belgium? Here’s Diana West’s take on this ridiculous, concocted story:
“Clearly, Antwerp’s Muslim population (or some sizable portion thereof) rejects the right of the native Christian culture to express itself in terms of its traditional symbols. But what does it mean if post-Christian Antwerp accedes to this Muslim ‘demand’?” Well, of course, “it will mean that another outpost of the West will have agreed to strip itself of the defining symbols of its own identity”!
Islam and women’s rights
“I read that Human Rights Watch has advertised for a position of Shari ‘ah adviser for its Women’s Rights section. So will Human Rights Watch also hire an adviser on Jewish and Christian religious laws, or do the folks of Human Rights Watch feel that gender equality has been fully achieved in all religious groups with the exception of Islam?”
As’ad Abukhalil at the Angry Arab, 20 August 2007
Another unfair, unbalanced discussion about Muslims
“FOX News once again used a discussion that purported to be about problems of religious intolerance as a platform to foment exactly that. On last night’s (8/22/07) Hannity & Colmes, a debate about a smear campaign against CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) turned into a smear campaign as FOX News producers gave Islamophobe Sean Hannity more camera time. Hannity, in turn, gave ‘his’ guest, the hatemongering David Horowitz more time to well, hate-monger. Alan Colmes and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell nevertheless did an excellent job with what they clearly knew was a stacked deck.”
Slipping through the cracks
Victoria Brittain examines the case of Belmarsh detainee Mr OO, drawing a parallel with the treatment of Jose Padilla in the US.
‘What else does a terrorist look like?’
Last year at Christmastime, Rehan Seyam, a Muslim living in New Jersey, went to pick up some things at a local Wal-Mart. Seeing her distinctive traditional Muslim head covering called a “hijab”, a man in the store, addressing her directly, sang “The 12 Days of Christmas” using insulting lyrics about terrorism and Osama bin Laden.
She was stunned. “Do I look like a terrorist to you?” Seyam said she asked the man. According to Seyam, the man replied, “What else does a terrorist look like?”
Such stories are not altogether uncommon for Muslim Americans. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 53 percent of Muslims living in America said it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the United States since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fifty-one percent said they are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that women wearing the hijab are treated poorly, according to the poll.
The ‘double standards’ of the Crown Prosecution Service
Right-wing Islamophobe Adrian Morgan (of the notorious Western Resistance blog) joins the ranks of commentators expressing indignation at the behaviour of West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service over the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” (on which, Morgan reminds us, “the respected journalist Martin Bright” acted as consultant).
Morgan charges the CPS with double standards, for prosecuting the leader of the “politically incorrect” (sic) BNP under the racial hatred law while refusing to take action against Muslim “preachers of hate”. This, Morgan opines, demonstrates that “law and order are not applied fairly to all”, i.e. that the state discriminates in favour of minority ethnic communities against the white majority. Which is, of course, the very same ludicrous racist fantasy that the BNP itself promotes.
Morgan writes: “The Crown Prosecution Service took the bizarre decision to prosecute Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, for statements he had made privately in 2004, but were filmed undercover by the BBC. Griffin had called Islam ‘a wicked and vicious faith’ that was turning Britain into ‘a multi-racial hell-hole’, and was prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. Twice. When he was acquitted by a jury for the second time on November 10, 2006, Gordon Brown suggested that race hate laws should be tightened – even though Islam is not, nor has it ever been, a race.
“The Crown Prosecution Service employs double standards. It engages in dogged attempts to prosecute the leader of a ‘politically incorrect’ party, while trying to have a documentary maker prosecuted for highlighting the genuine extremist statements made in some of Britain’s mosques. Yet it does not try to prosecute those preachers of hate – showing how law and order are not applied fairly to all. A free society should have a free press, a free media, and should allow its citizens to express their freedom of speech. Gordon Brown, who is now the unelected prime minister, would stifle all criticism of Islam under race hate laws, but Islamist preachers can apparently spew hatred of Britain, its people and its armed forces, with impunity.”
Family Security Matters, 21 August 2007
Although he reproduces it in his article, evidently Morgan hasn’t bothered to read the joint statement by West Midlands Police and CPS, which states quite clearly that it was the West Midlands Police who wanted to prosecute Channel 4 for inciting hatred and the CPS who rejected the proposal on technical grounds. But what can you expect from the idiot who once claimed that one of the individuals associated with Islamophobia Watch is the former secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party!
Seven-year-old Muslim boy stopped in US on suspicion of being a terrorist
For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school. But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.
The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity. The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone high-level security checks.
Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “It is ridiculous, I’m shocked. They really should have known he was only a seven-year-old child. I do understand the reasons but this was over the top. I can understand the safety aspect but it doesn’t help relationships with different faiths.”
What are we going to do about racism?
“Islamophobia is an institutionalized phenomenon that exists to varying degrees across the political spectrum, but mainly as fuel for the political right wing.” Ali Moossavi examines anti-Muslim bigotry in the US media.