Muslim booted off plane at Newcastle airport

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A young Muslim was booted off a plane at a North airport after asking cabin crew if he could pray before his flight, we can reveal. The incident happened when the country was on high alert last weekend after an alleged terrorist attack at Glasgow airport.

A source told us that the man – who has not been named – boarded a Thomsonfly flight at Newcastle International Airport bound for a holiday in Malaga, Spain, with friends. He asked staff if he could go in the galley area – which can be curtained off from passengers – and offer prayers before the flight took off. However – according to our source – the flight attendant asked the plane’s captain who promptly ordered the man off the aircraft.

Northumbria Police officers were waiting for the man in the departure lounge and searched him under terrorism laws. All they found was a bottle of water, used by Muslims to wash themselves before prayer, a compass to ensure he was facing the holy city of Mecca, and a traditional prayer-mat.

Evening Chronicle, 8 July 2007

Posted in UK

‘Thousands’ of London Muslims back Anjem Choudary, claim US rightwingers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer“Across town from the site of the recent attempted car-bomb attacks, several thousand Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government – a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America. ‘One day my dear Muslims’, shouted Anjem Choudary, ‘Islam will govern Britain!’ Choudary was a co-founder of Al Muhajiroun, the now-banned group tied to suspects in the July 7, 2005, London transport bombings and a cheerleader of the 9/11 attacks.”

World Net Daily, 9 July 2007

See also Jihad Watch, 9 July 2007

That would be a reference to this protest outside the London Central Mosque, would it? As you can see, reliable estimates of the attendance at Anjem Choudary’s demonstration varied between “about 20” and “two dozen”. Now, in the fevered imagination of gibbering right-wing Islamophobes in the USA, the figure has grown to “several thousand”. But we can hardly expect anything better from Robert Spencer, the self-proclaimed expert on all things Islamic who once assured Jihad Watch readers that Al Muhajiroun was “Britain’s largest Muslim group“!

‘Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

PD*1006852“Mr Brown thinks we upset decent Muslims by referring to bombers as ‘Islamic fanatics’ even if they shout ‘Allah is great’ as they blow us to pieces…. Some sensible Muslims are more prepared to call a spade a spade than our own mealy-mouthed politicians. It was Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, of Al-Arabiya TV, who first told the embarrassing truth after 9/11. ‘It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists’, he said. ‘But it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.’

“He was right then and he’s right now. When did a Jew or Sikh last put on a belt of explosives and blow himself and others to smithereens? Or a Hindu protester put a bomb in a mosque?

“If Gordon’s ‘New Speak’ encourages Britain’s three million Muslims to play their part in ending terrorism, I’m all for it. But rebranding won’t alter the fact that Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today. They are infiltrating our police, spy agencies, universities and government offices with the express purpose of imposing their own view on our world. Sadly, the courageous Muslims who are ready to risk their own lives by saying so can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, 9 July 2007

“Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today”? Well, apart from far-right racists like Robert Cottage of course. And how many op eds has Kavanagh produced on that? Answer: none. Indeed, how much coverage has the Cottage case received in the Sun? Three short reports back in February, and that was it.

And in answer to Kavanagh’s question as to when a Hindu protestor last put a bomb in a mosque, this would appear to be a likely candidate.

Faiths unite in rally against terror

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Scotland UnitedMore than 2000 people gathered yesterday to deliver the message that Scotland says no to terrorism.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the mixed race and faith crowd in George Square, Glasgow, Scots had responded “magnificently” to the airport attack last weekend.

Glasgow Central MP Mohammed Sarwar was among the demonstrators. He told the mainly Muslim crowd: “The message from Scotland is loud and clear that we stand united…against the terrorists and criminals who want to kill innocent men, women and children. Whatever colour, faith or background they come from, we condemn them.”

Reported in Sunday Mail

Martin Sullivan adds: See also the report by Osama Saeed, one of the organisers of the rally, at Rolled Up Trousers

‘Flying the flag is only the first step to victory’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Charles Moore examines the issue of “Britishness”. He writes: “… millions whose first language is not English now live in this country. A significant minority of them cannot even speak English. Many of these people are Muslims, and some seem to hate the country they inhabit. Their most prominent leaders, including the Muslim Council of Britain, which claims to be their main umbrella organisation, equivocate about the requirements of being British.”

Daily Telegraph, 7 July 2007

See also the Torygraph’s lead article, headed “We must make Muslims loyal subjects again”!

Bomb plot sparks attacks on Muslims in Bristol

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in Bristol have been racially abused and assaulted following the attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow. The Bristol Muslim Cultural Society (BMCS) has reported several incidents – the latest of which occurred on Wednesday night when two people were arrested outside a mosque in St Jude’s on suspicion of racially-aggravated offences.

BMCS director Farooq Siddique said: “People were arrested outside for shouting verbal abuse. People have had their hijabs ripped and there have been verbal and physical acts against women. There have been three or four incidents reported through the Hate Crime Unit but our concern is that not enough people are reporting it. They just say it’s the times we live in.”

Police spokesman Wayne Baker confirmed that a man and woman were arrested outside the mosque on Wade Street. The 19-year-old woman was released on police bail pending further inquiries while the man is still being questioned by police officers.

Bristol Evening Post, 7 July 2007

Don’t vote for Boris

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Boris Johnson“While I know some Muslims will disagree with me about this, I don’t mind whether the mayor of London is pro-Israel or supported the Iraq war. The mayoralty isn’t about that, it’s about things like transport (with Ken Livingstone having been mayor for as long as the position has existed, it’s hard to think of what else it’s about).

“It’s important, however, that the mayor is not a bigot, which on the strength of his coverage of Muslim affairs while editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson is. In that position, Johnson reacted to the July 2005 London bombings and the Paris slum riots of that year with horrendously unbalanced coverage, commissioning articles from the likes of Patrick Sookhdeo, full of sweeping generalisations, plain falsehoods and outright absurdities. The tone was that Islam itself, not an extremist movement, or the western policies off which it thrives, was to blame.”

Yusuf Smith responds to reports that Boris Johnson MP is considering standing for selection as the Tory candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election.

Indigo Jo Blogs, 5 July 2007

See also Yusuf’s comments on articles in the current issue of the (post-Johnson) Spectator.

Why the secular left sides with Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The other day when he was asked to react to the attempted car-bomb attacks on London, the city’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, called for tolerance. Fair enough, you might say. But at whom was his call for tolerance directed? You are probably thinking, if you are a logical sort, that the call must have been directed at the fanatics who had come within an ace of killing and maiming possibly hundreds of people. But you would be mistaken. Instead Ken directed his call at his fellow, non-Muslim, Englishmen. He said that in the past Jews, the Irish and gays had been persecuted in England and now it was the turn of Muslims….

“The War on Terror, if that term can still be used, is revealing strange ideological fissures in Western societies. I came across these fissures in person last September when I took part in about eight radio discussions in the days after Pope Benedict had quoted the Byzantine emperor who had less-than-flattering things to say about Islam. The line-up on those shows was me playing my usual role as the Catholic commentator, a Muslim representative, and frequently a representative of what I suppose we’ll have to call the secular left.

“On almost every one of these shows the secular left representative did his or her best to impersonate Ken Livingstone. First there was the usual ritualistic condemnation of the extremists, but this was then followed by a much more detailed discussion of why we are to blame for whatever Muslims extremists do to us. To all intents and purposes this placed the secular leftist firmly on the side of the Muslim representative….

“Essentially you had the guardians of tolerance siding with people who would crush homosexuals under walls if they could, and who would turn women into property given half a chance. And why this horrid sympathy? It is because the secular left’s hatred of Western civilisation, and certainly Christianity, America and Israel, is such that they will side with anyone, no matter how unsavoury, who shares that hatred.”

David Quinn in the Irish Independent, 6 July 2007

More on the Cologne Mosque controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Koln demoCOLOGNE, Germany – In a city with the greatest Gothic cathedral in Germany and no fewer than a dozen Romanesque churches, adding a pair of slender fluted minarets would scarcely alter the skyline. Yet plans for a new mosque are rattling this ancient city to its foundations.

Cologne’s Muslim population, largely Turkish, is pushing for approval to build what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques, in a working-class district across town from the cathedral’s mighty spires.

Predictably, an extreme-right local political party has waged a noisy, xenophobic protest campaign, drumming up support from its far-right allies in Austria and Belgium. But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.”

The far-right party Pro Cologne, which holds 5 of the 90 seats in the city council, collected 23,000 signatures on a petition demanding the halting of the project. The city says only 15,000 of them were genuine. On June 16, Pro Cologne mobilized 200 people at a rally to protest the mosque. Among those on hand were the leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by Jörg Haider, and the extremist party Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, from Antwerp. Both advocate the deportation of immigrants.

Manfred Rouhs, a leader of Pro Cologne, said the mosque would reinforce the development of a parallel Muslim society, and encourage the subjugation of women, which he said was embedded in Islam. “This is not a social model that has any place in the middle of Europe,” he said.

In this, he has found common ground with Mr Giordano, an 84-year-old Jew who eluded the Nazis in World War II by hiding in a cellar. Mr Giordano, who dismisses Pro Cologne as a “local chapter of contemporary National Socialists,” nonetheless agrees that the mosque is a threat. “There are people who say this mosque could be a step toward integration,” Mr Giordano said in an interview. “I say, ‘No, no, and three times no.’ Mosques are a symbol of a parallel world.”

“I don’t want to see women on the street wearing burqas,” said Mr Giordano, a nattily dressed man with the flowing white hair of an 18th-century German romantic. “I’m insulted by that – not by the women themselves, but by the people who turned them into human penguins.”

Henryk M. Broder, a Jewish journalist who is a friend of Mr Giordano’s, said he should have avoided the phrase “human penguins.” But Mr Broder said that his underlying message was valid, and that his stature as a writer gave him the standing to say it. “A mosque is more than a church or a synagogue,” he said. “It is a political statement.”

New York Times, 5 July 2007

Despite reporting that “public opinion about the project seems guardedly supportive, with a majority of residents saying they favor it”, the NYT devotes most of its coverage to the views of the bigoted minority.

See also David Vickrey’s comments at Dialog International, 5 July 2007