In the last week, the Daily Mail has run stories emanating from the far Right without revealing this fact to its readers, Ryan Erfani-Ghettani shows.
Football fans fined for tearing pages out of Qur’an at match
Two football fans – one a council worker who used to work with disabled children – have been fined after being convicted of tearing up pages of the Koran during a Birmingham City match.
Middlesbrough FC supporters Julie Phillips, 50, and Gemma Parkin, 18, admitted tearing up a book, but told magistrates they did not know it was the holy book of Islam. It happened as Blues drew 2-2 with Boro at St Andrew’s last December. The pair were both found guilty of committing a religiously aggravated public order offence.
Phillips told the court she only found out it was the Koran when she was questioned by police after stewards spotted what was happening. “I was mortified,” she said. “Very ashamed and disgusted in myself. It was just a book of some sort, I can’t remember if the cover was on. It was just white paper.” She said pages of the book were passed around to be ripped up for confetti.
The court heard Phillips, a Middlesbrough Council employee, worked with the elderly but used to have a role with disabled children. She also arranges travel for other football fans.
Parkin said she took the Koran into St Andrew’s after she was handed it at Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas Market. She claimed not to have looked at the book, saying she had no idea it was the Koran. She said her friend Mark Stephenson, earlier convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence, took the book from her bag. “He took it off me and it was ripped and turned into confetti,” she said. “Everyone else was ripping it up so I just ripped it.” But magistrates described her account as “unbelievable”.
Merseyside mosque bomb plotter Ian Forman jailed
A Nazi sympathiser who plotted to blow up mosques and Islamic centres has been jailed for 10 years.
Ian Forman, 42, developed a homemade bomb and researched religious venues in Merseyside, Kingston Crown Court heard.
Forman, of Shavington Avenue, Oxton, Birkenhead, was detained after work colleagues found him researching chemicals and explosives on the web. The explosive was discovered during a police raid, along with a replica Nazi uniform and bomb plans.
Officers said seized computers showed evidence of internet research into a number of mosques in Merseyside, including Penny Lane Mosque, Liverpool and Wirral Cultural Centre, Birkenhead. The court also heard Forman had video clips of himself experimenting with explosives and a homemade anti-Islam video.
UKIP condemns candidate James Elgar’s ‘deplorable’ tweets about Muslims and women
Ukip is distancing itself from a teenage council candidate who has been reported over offensive tweets.
James Elgar’s Twitter feed included a post with the hashtag #ThingsAsianBoysDo saying they “groom and rape underage white girls, stab and rob innocent old white people, bomb innocent white people”.
Another said no women were in the final of Celebrity Big Brother because they were “all in the kitchen where they belong”.
On the day of the Boston bombings in April last year, a tweet read: “So there are Muslims cheering and celebrating the Boston Bombings today…really, really sums them up. #scum”.
Macy’s customer falsely charged with theft forced to remove hijab
Juweria Khalid said she was a frequent Macy’s shopper, never missed their popular one day sales and this past October was no different, but little did she know how that day would change her life.
Khalid said after she already purchased a bracelet from the jewelry department, she spotted some earrings she also liked. Since she was already headed to the children’s department to shop for her two-year-old and 10-month-old, Khalid decided to pay for all of her items together on the 7th floor.
With her arms were full of bags from previous purchases, Khalid said she placed the earrings in her purse, fully intending she insists, to pay for her items. That’s when she was stopped by Macy’s loss prevention guards.
“I took out the jewelry and said to them I’m not stealing it. I’m going to buy it on the 7th floor. They never listened to me,” said Khalid.
Khalid was taken to the now infamous detention area of Macy’s, which she described to us as nothing short of a jail with bars. The Muslim woman, who wears a hijab, a Muslim head scarf, was forced to remove it. “They kept me locked there for hours. They never allowed me to take calls. My husband kept on calling like nine times,” explained Khalid.
Despite insisting she would pay for her items, which her attorney said added up to less than $100, Khalid said she was forced to pay a $500 fine with her Macy’s credit card. The NYPD was called, then Khalid charged with petit larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
Khalid has now been vindicated, a judge dismissed her case for insufficient evidence. But it appears the damage has already been done. Khalid was eight weeks pregnant at the time of the ordeal. She lost her baby just days after. Khalid and her doctors believe because of the stress she suffered.
Stop the Islamification of…Subway?!
Steve Rose responds to a Daily Mail report that Subway is stopping customers from enjoying pork and ham to appease Muslims.
Steve Rose’s Blog, 30 April 2014
Update: See “Halal search option removed from Subway website over staff safety fears”, Islamophobia Watch, 3 May 2014
Update 2: See also Steven Rose, “The sorry ‘Subway’ saga”, Tell MAMA, 7 May 2014
Dutch Jewish groups speak out against Wilders
Dutch Jewish groups have spoken out against Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, after he told supporters that he would reduce the number of Moroccans in the country, the JTA has reported.
Mr Wilders asked his supporters at a post-election celebration in March whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans”. To their chants of “fewer”, he said that he would “take care of it”.
Although Mr Wilder’s strident support for Israel and his anti-Islamist stance has made him popular among Jews at home and abroad, Dutch Jewish umbrella group, the CJO, released a statement saying they were horrified by his comments about Moroccans.
The Dutch Jewish weekly NIW last month claimed that, “Dutch Jewry is fed up with Geert Wilders.” Jewish groups in Holland were known to be deeply uncomfortable with Mr Wilders’s decision to forge an alliance in the European Parliament with the National Front, the French far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.
Vlaams Belang in anti-mosque protest
Het Nieuwsblad reports that Vlaams Belang has held a demonstration in Temse in East Flanders.
Displaying a banner featuring its favourite slogan, “Freedom or Islam”, the Belgian far-right party was protesting against a proposal to convert a disused former police station into a mosque for the local Moroccan community.
Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter joined the protest and called for a freeze on the opening of any new mosques.
Camden UKIP candidate stands by anti-Islam comments
A UK Independence Party (Ukip) candidate who made national headlines for describing Islam as “organised crime” says he does not regret making the comment and insists it is backed up by “quotations from the Quran”.
Camden Ukip chairman Magnus Nielsen, 64, who is bidding to become a councillor in West Hampstead, has made numerous posts on his Facebook page about the religion, including one in which he says “Islam is organised crime under religious camouflage”.
BNP to demonstrate against non-existent mosque application
Members of the British National Party are planning to demonstrate at the site of a former church which pre-application plans suggested could house a new mosque.
Dacorum Borough Council has confirmed no formal applications for the Muslim house of worship on the former Nash Mills Methodist Church site off Barnacres Road have been submitted. But the BNP’s secretary for the eastern region Chris Livingstone has announced the protest will be taking place on Saturday, May 10.
A spokesman for the council said no applications are even expected to be submitted at this time.