This year, the Oscar goes to … Islamophobia. Laura Durkay explains why.
Category Archives: USA
Does Philadelphia have a ‘burqa crisis’?
Daniel Pipes has written an article claiming that his home town of Philadelphia has “become the capital of the Western world as regards female Islamic garb as an accessory to crime”.
According to Pipes, “the Philadelphia region has witnessed 14 robberies (or attempted robberies) of financial institutions in the past six years in which the thieves relied on an Islamic full-body cover”. His solution? “Ban the niqab and burqa in public places, as the national governments in France and Belgium have recently done.”
Joel Mathis points out some flaws in this argument:
It’s important to understand, though, that Pipes’ “crisis” looks a little less disturbing when looked at closely. He justifies a ban because, by his count, at least 14 robberies have been committed in Philadelphia using Muslim garb … since 2007. That’s less than three a year. If you need more perspective, consider this: The 14 robberies that Pipes counts adds up to maybe one really busy shift for the police department. In the 28-day period ending Feb. 17, there were 507 robbery reports to city police – if 14 of those robberies had been committed by burqa-wearing assailants, that wouldn’t even be 3 percent of the total. Trying to calculate what those 14 cases look like compared to six or more years of robberies? You couldn’t even see a number that small with the naked eye.
So one doesn’t have to be politically correct to respond to Pipes by saying we don’t have a “burqa crisis.” All one needs, really, is math.
WSJ offers platform to hatemonger Hedegaard
The Wall Street Journal has seen fit to publish an article by Lars Hedegaard, the notorious Danish Islamophobe, who was recently targeted in an assassination attempt.
Hedegaard states disingenuously: “It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what may have spurred the gunman or those who may have sent him.” Well, we don’t know for certain, but it’s not difficult to work out that Hedegaard’s vile comments about “Muslim rapists” which led to his prosecution on a hate-speech charge is likely to have been a contributory factor.
Hedegaard omits to mention that part of his personal history. Instead, he performs his usual trick of presenting himself as a principled defender of free speech (whose organisation in fact bans Muslim opponents from its meetings). According to Hedegaard, his record is that of “an outspoken critic of Islamic supremacism and of attempts to impose Islamic Shariah law in Denmark and the West”.
Can we perhaps look forward to the WSJ – in the interests of free speech, of course – offering space to Eric Allen Bell to outline his views on “Jewish supremacism” and the attempts of its adherents to seize control of the media and the banking system?
Congressman says Americans need guns to protect the nation from Sharia Law
Tea Party Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told a conservative radio show on Thursday that the GOP must oppose gun regulations to protect the country from the threat of “Sharia Law.”
Appearing on The Voice of Freedom, Gohmert said he “hoped and prayed” that Congress rejects gun safety legislation, arguing that Americans may need to use the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to avoid succumbing to Muslims:
[The Second Amendment] is for our protection and the founders’ quotes make that very very clear and including against a government that would run amuck. We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed.
Gohmert has a long history of Islamaphobic remarks, most recently joining Rep. Michele Bachmannn’s (R-MN) much maligned effort to investigate the alleged infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into various departments of the U.S. government.
Think Progress, 21 February 2013
Update: See also “Interfaith group to GOP Congressman: Stop demonizing Islam”, Think Progress, 22 February 2013
Eric Allen Bell discovers that ‘Jewish supremacists’ control the media and the banks
Loonwatch has an interesting article drawing our attention to the latest twist in Eric Allen Bell’s erratic political evolution.
Bell, you may recall, is the US filmmaker who made a documentary giving sympathetic coverage to the Muslim community of Murfreesboro as they struggled to build a new place of worship in the face of fierce opposition from Islamophobes. Not long afterwards, Bell executed a complete about-turn and announced that the Muslim Brotherhood was engaged in a plot to take over the USA and that the Murfreesboro “mega-mosque” was an integral part of this project of Islamist conquest.
For second time, DMV denies ICUHAJI license plate
An Iraq war veteran’s quest to recover personalized license plates that some Arab Americans found offensive is not over.
After a judge ruled in November that the Department of Motor Vehicles couldn’t deny a tag on the grounds that it denigrated individuals of a particular nationality, the state has come up with a new reason to revoke Sean Bujno’s ICUHAJI plate.
In a letter from the DMV to Bujno, the agency said the tag – it can be read, “I see you, haji” – condones or encourages violence and is obscene or otherwise vulgar in nature. “That couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Andrew Meyer, Bujno’s attorney. “He really means it respectfully.”
Mayor of Malmö slams anti-Islam art exhibition
The mayor of Malmö has slammed an upcoming exhibition of work by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, saying he hoped no one would visit the gallery to see artwork he said was “associated with xenophobes”.
“Of course he has the right to display what he calls art anywhere he wants,” Mayor Ilmar Reepalu told the TT news agency. “But as far as I can gather, this is pretty bad art and I think they want to use the gallery for political ends,” he added. “Vilks is increasingly associated in people’s minds with xenophobic groups at the far right of the political spectrum. I hope not a single person visits the gallery.”
Murfreesboro Post appeals mosque ruling
The Murfreesboro Post filed an appeal Tuesday in the Tennessee Court of Appeals contending a Rutherford County judge unfairly targeted the publication and later erred by declining to rule on its legal status, as part of the on-going litigation over construction of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.
In the appeal, attorney David LaRoche contends Chancellor Robert Corlew III unnecessarily created controversy when none existed prior to the Islamic Center lawsuit, yet declined to rule on its status as a newspaper of general circulation.
As a result of those doubts being raised, he is arguing The Post has suffered a decline in advertising revenue for many types of legal notices even though it meets the definition of a newspaper of general circulation under Tennessee law.
The Post is a free newspaper that is published every Thursday and Sunday, and it is distributed to racks throughout Rutherford County. The locally owned publication also offers home delivery subscriptions to readers who live in the Middle Tennessee area.
“Other than the public notice in this case, there has never been a challenge to the adequacy of any other legal notice in The Post,” LaRoche said in the appeal, which is scheduled to be heard in March.
Furthermore, he said, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has never withdrawn its opinion classifying The Post as a newspaper of general circulation.
OK Republicans organise resistance to Muslim Brotherhood plot against US Constitution
Richard Bartholomew has further details on the “counterterrorism caucus” launched by Republican politicians in Oklahoma last week with the aim of resisting a Muslim Brotherhood plan to overthrow the US Constitution and replace it with sharia law.
NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast
The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.
In 2006 a University at Buffalo student named Adeela Khan ended up in a report by the NYPD’s Cyber Intelligence Unit because she had forwarded an email announcing an Islamic conference in Toronto at which the notorious extremist Tariq Ramadan was a featured speaker.
Update: See “CAIR to ask Yale, Rutgers to protect rights of Muslim students”, CAIR press release, 19 February 2012
And “Muslim groups press Rutgers to act on NYPD spy reports”,The Record, 19 February 2012