Anti-Islamic writer stirs hatred, Muslims warn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A visit to Sydney by a controversial Somali writer who calls the prophet Mohammed a pedophile and says Islam is inferior to Western culture has outraged Muslims, who accuse her of inciting hatred. Ayaan Hirsi Ali will arrive in Sydney today amid tight security normally reserved for foreign dignitaries or royalty. Her writings and talks focus on what she calls the backwardness of Islamic culture and the persecution of Muslim women.

University of Technology Sydney Islamic law lecturer Jamila Hussain said Hirsi Ali’s ideas were extreme and stigmatised Muslims. “I think she’d be better staying where she came from,” Ms Hussain said. “I’ve read enough of her thoughts. It’s a narrow and radical opinion, and I don’t agree with it. She’s obviously had some dreadful experiences, but they’re not typical.”

News.com.au, 29 May 2007

New sus laws against Muslims? Even the Sun is against it

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Government plans for new police powers to stop and question people were greeted with a barrage of criticism yesterday, after it emerged that senior police officers had neither requested the change nor been consulted. The Home Office confirmed that the power would be included in a counterterrorism bill to be announced in early June. But the vehemence and breadth of criticism led Home Office ministers to signal a willingness to compromise after the idea was also attacked by MPs, civil liberties and Muslim groups as unnecessary and harmful.

The new powers, contained in a leaked letter from the counter-terrorism minister, Tony McNulty, to Tony Blair, would make it an offence punishable with a £5,000 fine for a person to withhold their identity or refuse to answer questions. Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum which works to improve police and community relations, said: “This looks like the old sus laws, and will further alienate people and exaserbate the sense people have that the community is being victimised. There are enough powers for the police to do their job.”

Guardian, 28 May 2007

“… the seemingly random questioning of young Asians, backed by the threat of £5,000 fines, will drive a dangerous wedge between them and the authorities. It could therefore sabotage a key weapon in our war on terror: Intelligence from within the Muslim community. In a few extreme cases, the disaffection it will breed could even drive youths into the clutches of the brainwashing extremists looking to recruit suicide bombers. The principle that police must have reasonable suspicion to question anyone must be upheld. Most UK Muslims detest the bombers. It would be disastrous if a new law threatened the unity of all Britain’s communities against terror.”

Sun editorial, 28 May 2007

See also Melanie Phillips, who has no objection to targeting Muslims but complains that the government is proposing to “crack down on the entire population”.

Daily Mail, 28 May 2007

Muslim women are all oppressed says agony aunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mariella Frostrup replies to a letter from a woman objecting to the restrictive attitudes of her Muslim boyfriend:

“He’s the product of a culture that has a long way to go when it comes to accepting not only the equal rights but more worryingly the basic human rights of women. No doubt this response will be met by a barrage of correspondence from intelligent, emancipated Muslim women arguing that it is possible to be liberated, equal, female and a devout Muslim. And I’m sure it is, if your husband allows it….

“When the debate about the wearing of the hijab in schools was raised I found my principles severely compromised. On the one hand I believe absolutely in the right of any individual to express their beliefs and practise their religion. On the other, if that involves a visible declaration of inequality it’s hard to reconcile that with the world I want to live in. No matter how you spin the hijab, it cannot be described as an acceptable tool in furthering equality. I fear it’s the road down which you are heading if you don’t stop believing your boyfriend’s behaviour is acceptable and yours is not.”

Observer, 27 May 2007

Email:
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Blair: shackled in war on terror

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Blair and flagsWriting in the Sunday Times, Tony Blair calls for further attacks on the civil liberties of Muslims who are suspected of involvement in terrorism:

“Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism. Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment.”

As for the argument that his government has stoked up Muslim anger by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, Blair claims he can’t understand why there should be the slightest resentment at such actions:

“We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.”

Meanwhile, over at the Independent on Sunday, shadow Home Secretary David Davis promotes the Tories’ Cameroonian tactic of criticising Blair’s attacks on civil liberties from an apparently libertarian standpoint while at the same time advocating some even harsher measures against Muslim communities. Thus Davis complains that “these powers are not properly used against the real threats. Extremist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir are not banned”.

‘America must not ignore a dangerous percentage’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Diana West“According to Pew’s data, one-quarter of younger American Muslims approve of the presence of skin-ripping, skull-crushing, organ-piercing violence in civilian life as a religious imperative – ‘in defense of Islam’…. According to Pew, the total Muslim population in America is 2.35 million, 30 percent of whom are between 18 and 29. By my figuring, the suicide-bomb-approving cohort works out to 183,000 people….

“Multiculturalism preaches that all civilizations are the same, all religions are the same, all peoples are the same. The Pew results, meanwhile, tell them something else again: Some people – some young American Muslim people – approve of suicide bombing in defense of Islam. Does this finding perhaps introduce a qualitative difference among civilizations, religions and peoples? That is, is there something more desirable about societies that don’t inspire and glorify suicide bombings – something worth preserving? Conversely, is there something about Islam our own society requires protection against?”

Diana West assesses the Pew Research Center poll of American Muslims.

Townhall.com, 25 May 2007

Reid prepares to throw out human rights

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reid preparesReid prepares to throw out human rights

By Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 25 May 2007

Home Secretary John Reid was lambasted by peace campaigners yesterday for proposing an opt-out of international human rights treaties to let the government impose tougher anti-terror measures.

It was the first time that the government has indicated its intention to “derogate” from the European Convention on Human Rights so that it can put terror suspects under conditions which breach their human rights.

Answering an emergency Commons question on three terror suspects who have gone missing while under control orders, Mr Reid said that he will introduce a new counter-terrorism Bill to Parliament before stepping down in June.

Both Mr Reid and outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair used the opportunity to attack Parliament for voting down plans to extend detention without trial to 90 days. A compromise last year resulted in upping the limit to 28 days.

A spokesman for Mr Blair arrogantly declared: “What this is down to is Parliament not backing us in the first place in terms of the length of additional period we wanted and in limiting the effectiveness of control orders.”

Campaigners attacked the “outrageous” plans to opt out of the international treaty and condemned politicians, police and the media for treating the terror suspects – Lamine Adam, his brother Ibrahim and Cerie Bullivant – as convicts.

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German pointed out: “These men have not been charged with anything. They are suspects and being a suspect is not the same as being convicted. They should be charged if there is any evidence against them or released immediately.”

Ms German stressed that the “much bigger question is the rise in terrorism which has been linked to this government’s foreign policies. If Britain and the US had not invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, we would not have threats of terrorism,” she argued.

“Reid wants to usher in more repressive laws rather than own up to the government’s role in all this. To defeat terrorism, the government must back justice for Palestine, withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and change its foreign policy. That is what we will be demanding from Gordon Brown when we demonstrate at his election conference in Manchester on June 24,” Ms German added.

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Absorption or exodus: The future legacy of British anti-terror laws

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“‘We will kill every f***ing one of you Muslims’. One could be forgiven for believing this to be an excerpt from a BNP Party Political Broadcast. It is not. In fact, it is the horrifying taunt hurled by armed police officers with guns drawn at 34-year old London Underground worker ‘Abdul Rahman’ as he knelt before them cringing in fear for his life. Moments earlier, ‘Abdul Rahman’ had been pushed to the ground by 3 armed officers who subjected him to physical and verbal abuse, having intercepted him on his journey home from work. It was about half past four on a bright summer afternoon in full view of on-lookers.”

Fahad Ansari writes: BLINK, 22 May 2007

The Muslim cricket test

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruth KellySchool teachers are to force Muslim children to take sides with lessons involving imaginary terrorist plots. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly wants to change the national curriculum so that pupils will be asked where they stand if a friend wanted to launch a “holy war” attack on a local supermarket.

Community leaders are outraged by ministers plans to target Muslim schools with questions to kids about what they would do if Islamic extremists sought to buy fertilizer for a bomb plot. The proposals raised fears of a creeping surviellance culture in which teachers could come under pressure to reveal the identities of Muslims children who sympathised with terrorism.

Critics pointed out that the government did not seek to “educate” Catholic children in Northern Ireland about the dangers of sectarian violence but instead moved to achieve a political settlement. The government needed to deal with real causes of terrorism, such as the war on Iraq and Afghanistan and segregation caused by economic policies, rather than brand young kids as terrorist sympathisers. Muslim organisations voiced concerns that the plans are based on an assumption that Muslim schools are teeming with budding terrorists.

Lester Holloway reports: BLINK, 23 May 2007

‘New study shows US Muslims are extremists’ (unlike Debbie Schlussel)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Debbie Schlussel“The message of the just-released Pew Research Center study on ‘Muslim Americans’ is clear … America hasn’t moderated Islam or its adherents. Islam has made America[‘s] Muslim residents more extreme, just as with its European counterparts. Wealth and education and opportunity and freedom have done nothing to moderate them….

“The study shows that even from 2000-2007, 18% of Muslims are still immigrants – significantly up from the 1980s. Why – after 9/11 – are we letting one in five Muslims in America in from countries and a religion that hate us? It isn’t news to me. But it should be disturbing, nonetheless, that we have a policy of affirmative-action immigration for the religion of 19 hijackers and assorted worldwide beheaders, homicide bombers, and rioters.”

US pundit Debbie Schlussel (herself well known as a beacon of moderation who renounces all forms of extremism) writes at debbieschlussel.com, 23 May 2007

Read the Pew Center report here.

See also BBC News, muslimmatters.org and Abu Aardvark.

The poll result that has been flagged up by right-wing US pundits is that, in response to the question “Can suicide bombings of civilian targets to defend Islam be justified?”, 15% of those aged 18-29 said that such attacks were sometimes or often justified, 11% that they were rarely justified, and 69% that they were never justified (overall the figures were 8%, 5% and 78% respectively). This is the source of all those headlines claiming that 26% of young US Muslims are potential terrorists.

However, when members of the general American public were asked in a November-December 2006 poll (pdf here) whether “bombing and other types of attacks intentionally aimed at civilians” were justified, 24% replied that such attacks were sometimes or often justified, while 27% said they were rarely justified, and only 46% said they were never justified.

Which, applying the same calculation, means that 51% of all Americans are potential terrorists.