Blackburn man speaking to police told onlookers he would burn down their mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man who was being spoken to by police shouted abuse at people who were watching from across the road. Blackburn magistrates heard that Phillip Anthony Townley told onlookers he would burn down their mosque.

Townley, 56, of Cornelian Street, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to racially-aggravated threatening behaviour. He was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison suspended for 18 months, made subject to an electronically-monitored curfew between 8pm and 8am for six weeks and ordered to pay £280 costs.

Passing sentence, District Judge James Clarke said Townley attempted to justify his behaviour by claiming to be an Englishman. “Your behaviour went against everything expected of an Englishman – tolerance, understanding and respect for others,” said District Judge Clarke. “The society we live in expects better.”

Continue reading →

Mosque approved in 5-0 Kennesaw City Council vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kennesaw mosque protestors

KENNESAW — With a unanimous 5-0 vote Monday, the Kennesaw City Council approved a permit allowing an Islamic prayer center to open in a retail center, reversing its decision earlier this month to deny the request.

The controversial vote came despite protests from a crowd of about 20 people outside City Hall holding signs with the words “Ban Islam” and “No Mosque” and waving American flags before and after the meeting.

Monday’s vote, which was approved with a list of other items on the consent agenda without discussion, allows the applicant for the mosque, Kennesaw resident Mufti Islam, to use a 2,200-square-foot space in a retail shopping center off Jiles Road near Cobb Parkway as a Muslim prayer center.

Kashif Islam, the applicant’s brother, said he had no ill feelings toward the protesters. “They have the right to protest,” Kashif Islam said.

Kashif Islam said he was happy he was given the freedom to practice his religion in the retail center and that the vote ended peacefully. “This is not life and death. We’ve been living in this neighborhood for 15 years. Have you ever seen us getting into trouble? No,” Kashif Islam said.

Continue reading →

Fox’s O’Reilly: ‘All the wolves have been Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On his show last night, Fox host Bill O’Reilly (12/15/14) weighed in on the value of torture and the hostage situation in Australia:

In Sydney, Australia today, a Muslim fanatic apparently kills two, injures four others, before police shoot him dead. Another lone wolf terror attack that was seen all over the world. So far all the wolves have been Muslims.

The suspect in this case was Muslim, though that would seem to be just part of the story;  he faced “22 counts of aggravated sexual assault and 14 counts of aggravated indecent assault,” as the Guardian reported (12/15/14).

But is it really true that every “lone wolf” terrorist is Muslim? No.

Back in 2011, pundits claimed the Arizona mass shooting carried out by Jared Loughner should be considered an isolated incident, disconnected from any particular political movements or rhetoric he may have espoused. But as Jim Naureckas (FAIR Blog, 1/12/11) showed, using a list from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, this argument requires treating many acts of political violence as the work of “lone nuts.”

Continue reading →

15,000 join anti-Islam protest in eastern Germany

Posted on by Bob Pitt

PEGIDA protest 15.12.14A record 15,000 people marched Monday in eastern Germany against “asylum cheats” and the country’s “Islamisation” in the latest show of strength of a growing far-right populist movement.

Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier cautioned Germans against falling prey to xenophobic “rabble-rousing”, reacting to the nascent movement called “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” or PEGIDA.

“The people are with us!,” the group’s founder Lutz Bachmann shouted at the crowd, celebrating a 50-percent rise in attendance since their last “Monday demonstration” in a series of rallies that started only in October.

“Everywhere now, in every news rag, on every senseless talkshow, they are debating, and the most important thing is: the politicians can no longer ignore us!” Bachmann told the mass of people, many waving the black-red-gold national flag.

“We have shown by taking another ‘little stroll’, and by growing in numbers, that we’re on the right path, and that slowly, very slowly, something is beginning to change in this country,” Bachmann bellowed to loud cheers.

Since the protests have rapidly grown in size and spawned smaller clones in half a dozen cities, a debate about immigration and refugees has gripped Germany, a country whose Nazi past makes expressions of xenophobia especially troubling.

Continue reading →

Turkish mosque attacked with fireworks in Netherlands

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Selimiye MosqueA Turkish mosque located in eastern Dutch city of Enschede was attacked with fireworks late on Saturday.

The attack caused material damage to the Selimiye Mosque, which is owned by the Foundation of Religious Affairs of Netherlands (Hollanda Diyanet Vakfı – HDV).

The chairman of the mosque’s foundation, Sebattin Yıldız, gave a statement to Anadolu Agency and said that the attack had taken place late on Saturday night and had caused the mosque’s windows to break.

“A person whose face was covered left a firework on the mosque’s window” Yıldız said, according to the footage recorded by security cameras.

Yıldız added that they had been exposed to similar attacks in the past that had included threat notes and xenophobic writing on the mosque’s walls.

Continue reading →

EDL supporters disrupt court demanding Sydney cafe siege updates

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Otis BloodworthThe sentencing of eight English Defence League supporters for violent disorder was temporarily halted on Monday after one of them demanded to be updated on the Sydney cafe siege.

Judge Richard Bond briefly adjourned the case after being verbally abused, urged to “pass proper sentences” on Islamic extremists, and asked: “Any news on the Australian hostages?”

Some of the defendants walked around the dock at Birmingham crown court during the outbursts, which also included chants of “No surrender to the Taliban.”

Judge Bond had already sentenced three of the men when one of them shouted “If there were proper sentences for extremists, the EDL wouldn’t be here” and another asked for news of events in Australia. The judge then left the courtroom for several minutes, before returning to continue to address the defendants and explain their sentences.

Among those in the dock over violent scenes at an EDL rally in Birmingham city centre was Otis Bloodworth [pictured], who attended the protest event in July 2013 wearing Union Jack boxing gloves and shorts. CCTV footage played to the court showed Bloodworth, of Skegness, Lincolnshire, punching a man who was being led away from the event by stewards.

The 35-year-old, who has 43 previous convictions dating back to 1997, was arrested and taken to a police station in March after an appeal for information on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme. When questioned by officers as to whether he had any medical conditions, Bloodworth said he had “Islamophobia” and refused to be represented by a Muslim solicitor.

Continue reading →

BNP Christmas card says nativity scenes are being ruthlessly replaced with penguins to please Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British National Party Protecting Christmas

The far-right British National Party has released its 2014 Christmas card, which claims the festival is being stealthily destroyed by the authorities to please Muslims.

The card calls on supporters to help save Christmas from being “ruthlessly dismantled” by politically correct authorities who are replacing images of Jesus, Mary and Joseph with penguins and polar bears “to appease Muslims”.

Under a union flag shaped like a heart, the card also wishes recipients a “white Christmas” – a slogan which was viewed as potentially racist when it appeared on its card last year.

The message inside the card claims British identity is under threat from a “calculated and vicious attack” from pro-Islam holidaymakers, who are plotting to wipe out Christian figures such as Jesus and Mary and ruthlessly replace them with cute winter animals.

“We’ve all heard of ‘Winterval,'” the card’s battle cry continues, “it’s the Politically Correct replacement of our traditional Christmas – an engineered replacement complete with polar bears, penguins, and snowflakes to eradicate our traditional nativity scenes, with baby Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and the Three Wise Kings all to be airbrushed out.”

Continue reading →

Far-right Islamophobe tries to exploit Sydney hostage crisis as Australian Muslims face racist backlash

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ralph Cerminara stages publicity stuntRalph Cerminara, president of Australian Defence League, burst into an angry rant and had to be escorted away by police after an outburst near the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in central Sydney as the hostage crisis continued.

“Half the reason we’ve got this problem today is because of left wing bigots… These people may be murdered because of your left wing bigotry… It’s finally happened!” Cerminara shouted angrily before being taken away by police.

Cerminara’s flare-up was an ominous warning of the backlash the Muslim community could face when the siege is finally resolved. And a terrorism expert agreed, saying that racist attacks targeting Australia’s Muslim community are “quite likely”.

Ben Rich, a researcher into political violence at Monash University’s School of Social Sciences, said some Australian Muslims could face reprisal due to the incident in Sydney.

“I can’t say to what extent it’s going to be, but I’d say it’s quite likely,” Mr Rich said. He predicted that any violence would probably not be “organised by any particular political party” but was more likely to be “just a group of guys deciding ‘let’s go do something, let’s go attack someone’.”

Continue reading →

Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 8‑14 December

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 8‑14 December 2014