Category Archives: USA

Standing up against hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Right-wingers tried to fan the flames of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate at the University of California-Irvine (UCI) on February 28, sponsoring a meeting titled “Unveiling the Cartoons”. Following the lead of a few college newspapers that reprinted cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, the UCI College Republicans sponsored the public meeting to display the offensive caricatures.

But Arabs, Muslims and their supporters didn’t take this provocation sitting down. As many 1,000 people turned out to counter the racists’ message, outnumbering the Republicans’ audience. “We are standing up against racism and hatred. We are not going to let it happen, not here,” said Quanita of the Muslim Student Union (MSU). Students at the protest wore armbands to express their solidarity and held banners saying “Stop Islamophobia!”

Socialist Worker (US), 10 March 2006

Jihad Watch denounces ‘Dhimmi Esposito’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John EspositoRobert Spencer offers a characteristically restrained critique of John L. Esposito, who is generally agreed to be the leading western academic expert on Islam:

“The dhimmi Saudi shill John Esposito, whose word still reigns supreme in the White House, and who has praised the suicide-terror-endorsing Sheikh Qaradawi as a ‘reformist’, has now fallen so low as to echo paranoid conspiracy theories about Daniel Pipes being behind the printing of the Danish cartoons. He also recommends that Muslims promote themselves more aggressively in the West. And I’m sure that he will be ready to help with that promotion.”

Dhimmi Watch, 8 March 2006

Clarke criticises Danish ‘mistake’ over cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British government has accused its Danish counterparts of making “a serious mistake” in the way it handled relations with Muslim countries after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, criticised the decision by the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to snub a request from 11 Muslim countries for a meeting after the cartoons were published in the Jyllands Posten newspaper in September. Mr Clarke told a public meeting in Willesden that Mr Rasmussen had not even responded to the request.

Guardian, 8 March 2006

And why hasn’t this appeared on Dhimmi Watch? Is Robert Spencer prepared to sit idly by while British politicians sell out western civilisation to the Muslim hordes?

Postscript:  This was quite unfair on Robert. Shortly after our comment was posted, he laid into Clarke: “Britain’s Home Secretary criticizes Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for not throwing freedom of speech overboard and rushing into dhimmitude.”

Dhimmi Watch, 9 March 2006

Muslim woman denied job for scarf sues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman who claims she was denied employment after she refused to remove a head scarf worn for religious reasons is accusing a Des Moines convenience store chain of violating her religious rights. In the lawsuit, Aaliyah Withers-Johnson claims officials at Git-N-Go Convenience Stores Inc. told her she could not work for the company if she insisted on wearing the head scarf, known as a hijab, worn as part of her Islamic faith. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Des Moines, accuses the company of racial and religious discrimination.

Withers-Johnson, who also is black, claims she wore the scarf to her initial job interview for a position as a store clerk on March 11, 2005, was offered a position and told to report six days later for training. But at the training session, Withers-Johnson claims she was immediately pulled aside by a company official and told she would not be able to start ‘”because of the thing you are wearing on your head,’” the lawsuit said.

Des Moines Register, 6 March 2006

Stop the appeasment of Muslim fanatics, Jerusalem Post writer urges

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“…. experience has proven experience has proven that all governmental attempts to appease radical Islamists have not advanced the well-being and security of Western democracies. Rather, such appeasement policies have served to weaken Western, liberal values and threaten the viability of Western societies.

“In Europe, the official reactions to the Muslim cartoon riots exposed this reality. Rather than telling the Muslims who took to the streets and called for the annihilation of Denmark and the waging of global jihad where they could shove it, Europe’s leaders bowed before these violent, intolerant people while expressing contrition and sorrow over the Islamic sensitivities that had been offended.

“In Britain the media refused to publish the pictures of Muhammad – out of sensitivity for Muslim feelings, of course. The newspaper editor who published the pictures in France was fired. In Norway, the editor who published the pictures was forced to publicly apologize to Norway’s Muslim leaders in a humiliating public ceremony. Franco Frattini, the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security said it would be useful for the press to ‘self-regulate’ in attempting to find answers to question of ‘How are we to reconcile freedom of expression and respect for each individual’s deepest convictions?’

“And so, the European reaction to the Muslim rampages has involved slouching towards the surrender of their freedom of speech. Not only has Europe’s appeasement of radical Islam not protected its liberal values, it has undermined the democratic freedoms that form the foundations of European culture. From a security perspective, the consequence of the silencing of pubic debate on the challenge of radical Islam is that Europeans are now effectively barred from conducting a public discussion about the chief threat to their political traditions and physical survival.”

Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post, 3 March 2006

For a similar analysis, see the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty website, 2 March 2006

‘Cartoon jihad: hunting the kids’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jens RohdeThe claim by Jens Rohde, political spokesman for the governing Danish Liberal Party, that “a daughter of one cartoonist was sought out by 12 Moslem males – they were looking to get to her. Fortunately she wasn’t at school” was repeated by right-wing US blogger Michelle Malkin, under the headline “Cartoon Jihad: Hunting the Kids”, and was widely repeated by the numerous other Islamophobes who infest the blogosphere.

The accusation was without any basis in fact, as Jens Rohde himself subsequently admitted. Even Robert Spencer has been forced to concede that the report was nonsense:

“The story about the threatening of the daughter of one of the Danish cartoonists, which I have now removed, turns out to be false. Its source, the Danish politician Jens Rohde, has misinformed the public – according to the cartoonist whose daughter is the subject of the story. In reality, 12 Muslim men did not come to the girl’s school looking for her. Instead, the whole thing was a dispute among two groups of ten- and eleven-year-old girls, and it had nothing to do with cartoon rage.”

No such retraction has been forthcoming from Malkin, however.

US cites exception in torture ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

guantanamo-bayBush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.

In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee’s lawyers described as “systematic torture.”

Government lawyers have argued that another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives. Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May 2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions.

Washington Post, 3 March 2006 

Islamophobia on a US campus (2)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A student’s column in the Oregon State University campus newspaper has prompted protests by Muslim students, who say it is offensive to their faith.

The piece headlined “The Islamic double-standard” was written by OSU microbiology student Nathanael Blake and published in the Daily Barometer on Feb. 8. The column accused Muslims of expecting special treatment after a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Riots over the cartoons amounted to “savagery,” Blake said. “Bluntly put, we expect Muslims to behave barbarously,” his column said.

On Thursday, about a dozen students – including members of Muslim and Arab student groups – held a vigil on the campus to protest both Blake’s piece and the Danish cartoons. They handed out flyers that stated “While staying loyal to the main values of freedom of expression that founded this country, we also feel the need to reflect on the values of tolerance and acceptance on this campus.”

Continue reading →

Islamophobia on a US campus

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Irvine protestA student panel discussion that included a display of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons descended into chaos, with one speaker calling Islam an “evil religion” and audience members nearly coming to blows.

Organizers of Tuesday night’s forum at the University of California, Irvine, said they showed the cartoons as part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism. But several hundred protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, argued the event was the equivalent of hate speech disguised as freedom of expression.

Tensions quickly escalated when the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said that Islam was an “evil religion” and that all Muslims hate America. Later, panelists were cheered when they referred to Muslims as fascists and accused mainstream Muslim-American civil rights groups of being “cheerleaders for terror.”

Fox News, 1 March 2006

See also “Cartoon display protested”, Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2006