Category Archives: USA

US Muslims ‘face more harassment’

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Muslims in the United States were subjected to a record number of alleged harassment attacks in 2003, a new report by a Muslim rights group says.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said it received 1,019 claims of physical and verbal abuse, up from 602 the previous year. It said Muslims were harassed at work, in schools and in their communities.

Fears of terror attacks after 11 September 2001 and the Iraq conflict contributed to the increase, it said. The Cair also blamed what it called Muslim-bashing in the US media and the misapplication of the country’s anti-terrorism bill, known as the Patriot Act.

BBC News, 3 May 2004

Pipes attacks USIP for going soft on terrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The congressionally funded United States Institute of Peace will host an event today in Washington on reforming Islam, with a guest panelist who has threatened the United States and openly supported terrorist groups, Kenneth R. Timmerman claims.

Not unexpectedly, Daniel Pipes joins in the witch-hunt, accusing USIP of associating with groups “on the wrong side in the war on terrorism”. Pipes states: “I believe that President Bush appointed me to the USIP board in part to serve as a watchdog against militant Islamic groups. Unfortunately the management of USIP is not listening to my advice.”

Insight Magazine, 19 March 2004

In Europe, is it a matter of fear, or loathing? (of Muslims, that is)

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“Western Europe’s 15 million-strong Muslim community is growing in power and size. The birthrate among Muslims in Europe is three times that of non-Muslims. While the Muslim population could double by 2015, the non-Muslim population is expected to shrink by 3.5 per cent.

“As this community grows, it is also flexing its political muscle. As the columnist Mark Steyn, writing in defence of Kilroy in the right-leaning The Daily Telegraph, put it: ‘When free speech, artistic expression, feminism and other totems of Western pluralism clash directly with the Islamic lobby, Islam more often than not wins.’

“This would not be a problem if it weren’t for the distressing but unavoidable reality that small but significant sections of that growing Muslim community are either outright hostile to or at least ambivalent toward Western values.”

Robin Shepherd, in the Washington Post, 25 January 2004

Peace professor singled out Jews of France, wins key post at Notre Dame

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A Swiss scholar who has been accused in France of sowing anti-Semitism and is considered by some analysts to be an apologist for radical Islam will be coming to America this fall to teach at University of Notre Dame in Indiana.”

Eli Lake launches the campaign to get Tariq Ramadan barred from the US, with the assistance of Campus Watch.

New York Sun, 7 January 2004

France’s wake-up call

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The most vocal advocate of Wahhabism in France is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss philosophy teacher who happens to be the grandson of Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ramadan has been very active in France during the past ten years, spreading his extremist views and becoming the unofficial voice of French Islam.”

Seriously – Tariq Ramadan is a proponent of Wahhabism! Who is responsible for this nonsense? It’s Olivier Guitta.

Front Page Magazine, 23 December 2003

The Devil and Daniel Pipes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Pipes has repeatedly demonstrated hostility toward Arabs and toward Islam as a religion,” says Mitchell Plitnick, co-director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Voice for Peace, one of several Jewish organizations that have mobilized against him. “Of equal concern is that Pipes has often espoused the view that force is the most appropriate solution to the problems in the Middle East and the Muslim world.”

In These Times, 8 September 2003