Category Archives: USA

Teenage punks behind black hijabs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The unsmiling girl in the black hijab defined her identity thus: ‘I am a Muslim of Arab origin, living within British society.’ Hadil, 18, could not attend a more racially integrated school than Quintin Kynaston in West London where, according to its Ofsted report, ‘the wealth of cultures and faiths is valued, respected and appreciated’.

“Hadil, along with a number of fellow pupils, had taken part in a documentary called ‘Young, British and Muslim’ and here she was up on stage, giving her views to an audience at the National Film Theatre. Yet in reply to the question ‘Do you feel British?’ Hadil shrugged and said: ‘I look at British culture and see no moral values which appeal to me.’

“And it was hard not to bristle, not to think unbecoming, angry thoughts such as: ‘Why endure our repulsive morality a moment longer? Wouldn’t you simply be happier in a Muslim country?'”

Janice Turner in the Times, 24 September 2005

See also Daniel Pipes blog, 24 September 2005

‘CAIR’s airbrushed Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Last Friday night I went on Alan Colmes’ radio show to discuss Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s suggestion that American mosques be wiretapped. Romney was right, I said, because American Muslims had not taken any concrete steps to separate jihadists and those with jihadist sympathies from their ranks. Colmes invoked in reply the condemnations of terror by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). He chided me for not taking CAIR’s condemnation of terrorism at face value.”

Robert Spencer explains that Muslims who condemn terrorism can’t be taken seriously.

Human Events, 22 September 2005

‘Ontario: a shari’a-free zone’ (US Right backs WPI)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arjomand Front Page“Iranian exile Homa Arjomand scores a key victory for Western civilization,”  Front Page Magazine proclaims. Alyssa A. Lappen (for further articles by this author, see here and here) offers a gushing endorsement of the Islamophobic activities of a central committee member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran:

“When Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced on Sunday September 11 that Ontario would outlaw all forms of religious arbitration, including Islamic law or Shari’a, Western civilization won a great victory. For that success, Canada and the US owe their thanks to Iranian exile Homa Arjomand, director of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court (ICASC).”

Front Page Magazine, 20 September 2005

Homa Arjomand takes her place alongside Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Jamie Glazov – which is exactly where she belongs.

My fight for justice for Guantánamo prisoners

Posted on by Bob Pitt

My fight for justice for Guantánamo prisoners

By John Higginson

Metro, 20 September 2005

“The most important thing going on right now is the hunger strike in Guantánamo”, says lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith. “There are ten British nationals all of them to my knowledge going into their sixth week of starving themselves to death. These people are going to die in the next few weeks and the military are trying to keep all that a secret.”

Stafford-Smith, 46, is the legal director of Reprieve, a British charity protecting the human rights of people facing the death penalty.

One of the worst alleged miscarriages of justice in Guantánamo Bay is that of Omar Deghayes, a Libyan who spent 15 years in London. The 35-year-old completed a degree here and went to Afghanistan to carry out humanitarian law work. He moved to Pakistan and was seized by US forces in 2002.

According to his supporters, he was picked up by bounty hunters and sold to US troops. He has not been charged with any offence. The only evidence against him is a video which the US claims links him to terrorism – but facial recognition experts say he is not the man in the video.

“Omar was one of America’s 50 top terrorists based on a video they had of a terrorist in Chechnya”, Mr Stafford-Smith said. “When Omar finally found out why he was being held, he told me he had never been to Chechnya. The video is not Omar. The man is a Chechnyan terrorist, who is believed to have died in April 2004. So Omar has been held for three-and-a-half years on a total misidentification.

“He has been pretty savagely treated in Guantánamo and blinded in his right eye. He told me, ‘I may as well take my life into my own hands rather than waiting for them to take it’. He is firm in his belief to take his life.”

‘Don’t apologize, governor Romney!’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Andrew C. McCarthy gives his enthusiastic backing to Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts governor who called for the wiretapping of US moques.

National Review Online, 19 September 2005

But McCarthy’s plan – which would involve snooping on “not all mosques, but many of them” – is a bit liberal for Robert Spencer’s tastes: “The only problem here is that we cannot know which mosques need monitoring without monitoring them.” According to Spencer, 80% of mosques in the US are under “extremist” influence. Clearly, the only solution is to wiretap the lot.

Jihad Watch, 19 September 2005

Taking back Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Ignatius on the struggle within Islam. A bit confused over the character of Salafism – which he equates with the jihadist groups – but perceptive about some of the forces in the Muslim world that are actually combating terrorism. He gives the example of

“an Islamic conference in Amman in July that concluded with a communique on ‘True Islam and Its Role in Modern Society’. It reemphasized the traditional faith – the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, the orthodox school of Shiite jurisprudence, the canon set forth over centuries of fatwas and other orthodox interpretations of what Islam means. Rather than running scared, as mainstream clerics sometimes do when facing the Salafist onslaught, the Amman declaration was proud and emphatic. It drew together fatwas from the leading clerics in Islam, including the sheik of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf. Another backer was Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, who has a weekly show on al-Jazeera and is probably the best-known television preacher in the Arab world.”

Washington Post, 19 September 2005

Bishops suggest apology for war

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Church of England bishops have suggested Christian leaders apologise to Muslim leaders for the war in Iraq. A report from a working group of bishops says the war was one of a “long litany of errors” relating to Iraq. As the government is unlikely to offer an apology, a meeting of religious leaders would provide a “public act of institutional repentance”, it said. It urges a “truth and reconciliation” meeting, but acknowledges that arranging it could be difficult.

The report, entitled Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, was written by a working group of the Church of England’s House of Bishops. It suggests the meeting would be an opportunity to apologise for the way the West has contributed to the situation in Iraq, including the war.

BBC News, 19 September 2005

Not a proposal that finds favour among the folks at Harry’s Place or their co-thinkers at
Jihad Watch

Muslim groups, others call for Romney apology

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A coalition of Muslim and civil-libertarian organizations yesterday demanded that Gov. Mitt Romney apologize for suggesting earlier this week that some mosques be wiretapped. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts delivered a letter, co-signed by 21 other organizations, saying Romney’s comments depicted Muslims living in the United States as potential or actual terrorists.

“Governor Romney, the safety of Massachusetts is built upon the trust all residents – citizens and immigrants – have in their government,” the letter stated. “Your willingness to profile and scapegoat an entire community based on religious affiliation only serves to erode trust and increase fear.”

Lowell Sun, 17 September 2005

See also Boston Globe, 17 September 2005 

‘Britain’s ostrich mentality’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Terrorism Act of 2000, in section 59 1(a), ‘Inciting Terrorism Overseas’, clearly states, ‘a person commits an offence if he incites another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom’. Needless to say, such an act also constituted an offense when committed in England. Yet Islamist imams were allowed with impunity to incite suicide bombing in British mosques, on the Internet and in the media. They were allowed to do so because this incitement chiefly targeted Israel.

“Although such incitement has recently lessened in intensity, the very same Islamist leaders, preachers, imams and scholars who supported it have been appointed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to a new task force to tackle extremism among young Muslims. Among the appointees are Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss grandson of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Inayat Bunglawala, the spokesperson of the Muslim Council of Britain.”

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen have a go at Tariq Ramadan and Inayat Bunglawala, plus Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ken Livingstone and George Galloway.

Front Page Magazine, 16 September 2005 17