Number Ten Downing Street have refused to amend a petition on their website threatening “terrible violence and suffering” against Muslims. Scores of outraged members of the public emailed Tony Blair’s website manager after a petition was posted which predicted violence unless plans for a “mega Mosque” on the Olympic site in east London was dropped. No.10’s webmaster has so far not responded to Blink’s protest, but told a concerned reader Downing Street was powerless to change the petition’s wording once it had been accepted.
A plan to radicalise Muslims
Ajmal Masroor responds to Ruth Kelly’s six-point plan for preventing violent extremism and winning hearts and minds.
Stillwater, Oklahoma sinks into dhimmitude
“Easter – the most joyous and important holiday in the Christian calendar. But there was no mention of it on the front page of an Oklahoma newspaper in a town served by more than 70 churches. Instead, page 1 of the Stillwater NewsPress was dominated yesterday by a story about efforts to battle anti-Islam bigotry by the Muslim Student Association of Oklahoma State University. ‘You wouldn’t have known it was Easter at all according to the paper if it wasn’t for the full page Hobby Lobby ad situated toward the back of the paper,’ one unhappy reader told WND.
“To him and others who saw the paper on Easter morning, there was surprise to see page 1 dominated by a large photo of Muslims praying – a picture that illustrated a story about ‘Muslim 101’, a monthly educational series begun on campus because of negative stereotyping about Islam following Sept. 11. The classes began last November, but the Stillwater NewsPress featured the story on the holiest of Christian holidays yesterday.”
Interview with Dr Bilal Philips
Austrolabe interviews Bilal Phillips, the Canadian Muslim scholar who was recently refused a visa to attend an Islamic conference in Melbourne.
Muslims on alert after hate crime
Jerome Heath hasn’t heard of a hate crime in Clarksville in the seven years he’s lived here. But now he finds himself in the midst of one – a crime that is placing Muslims on higher alert.
Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps. The front of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, read “Mohammad pedophile” while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report.
The report labeled the incident a hate crime. Bacon is offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork. “We were upset. Actually, some of us were outraged, but everyone was upset,” said Heath, a representative of the center. “We see it a lot on the news in Nashville (because) Nashville has a large Muslim population. But here in Clarksville – being a lot smaller (and) being very diverse with Fort Campbell – it was the last we thing we expected.”
The Islamic Center was founded in June 2005. Heath estimates that more than 40 Muslim families live in the Clarksville and Fort Campbellareas.
Heath said police told him they would contact the FBI and send out more patrols to monitor the center. Surveillance cameras have since been installed. “We have put our community on alert and warned everyone to keep their eyes open,” he said.
The Leaf-Chronicle, 10 April 2007
See also “CAIR seeks FBI probe of ‘hate crime’ at TN mosque”, CAIR press release, 10 April 2007
Update: Islamophobes are outraged that such an attack should be categorised as a hate crime. “Is Clarksville, Tennessee, under Sharia law?”, Robert Spencer demands.
Muslims poised to seize Somerset orchards
Over at the British National Party website, the fascists give a boost to their candidate for Yeovil Town Council, one Robert Baehr. In an attempt to provide a “progressive” cover for its racist programme, the BNP promotes Baehr as “a veteran environmentalist campaigner and former Green Party candidate”.
This is the same Robert Baehr who once explained to the Observer that he left the Greens because of their commitment to feminism and multiculturalism and because he was “worried that the orchard that he plans to bequeath to his sons will be seized by the Islamic republic he believes Britain is set to become”!
TUC battles against workplace Islamophobia
Muslim and trade union organisations announced on Monday that they are to hold a joint seminar on improving the job prospects of Muslim workers and combating Islamophobia.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) will hold the event on Thursday. The two groups will discuss not only job prospects for Muslims but how to combat the effects of Islamophobia and far-right activity in parts of Britain. The event follows pledges by the TUC and the MCB last year to work together to encourage more Muslims to join trade unions.
Monday’s statement also backed efforts to improve community relations, both at work and in society. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said:
“We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge facing us today. Islamophobia is a real and present threat, fuelled by prejudice and misunderstandings, and the rise of the far right and electoral success of the BNP are alarming features of recent years. Local elections are approaching once again and, by working together, the TUC and the MCB can expose the far right for what they really are and work towards a better deal for everyone in the workplace.”
MCB secretary general Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari said: “We believe in social justice and equal rights for all. The Muslim community is facing real problems of discrimination and poverty – a third of Muslims are living in the 10 per cent of most-deprived neighbourhoods of the country, but we have a tremendous amount to offer the British workplace in terms of skills, optimism and energy.”
The seminar will be held at the Congress Centre in London. It will be chaired by TUC general council member Mohammed Taj and keynote addresses will be given by Mr Barber and Dr Bari.
Morning Star, 10 April 2007
Radical Islam: ministers get the message
“Attitudes about how to deal with radical Islam are now shifting so quickly within Whitehall that it is hard to keep up. The detailed announcement from Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, on how she will spend £5m on grass-roots hearts and minds projects is a genuine break with the recent past, when ministers preferred to fund self-appointed national representatives of Islam such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)….
“In July of last year, I wrote a controversial pamphlet published by the think-tank Policy Exchange in which I exposed the extent to which the British government and the Foreign Office in particular had made a compact with radical Islam. In the Middle East, this constituted a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, which works towards an Islamic state through the democratic process; at home this was largely expressed by the Labour government’s long-standing relationship with the Muslim Council of Britain.
“Leaked Foreign Office documents showed that officials and ministers had adopted a policy of what one diplomat described as ‘engagement for its own sake’ with ostensibly moderate Islamist groups in an attempt to counter the influence of more extreme organisations. This policy had also been allowed to seep into domestic policy, over which the Foreign Office had, until recently, an extraordinary degree of influence. Using a series of articles in this magazine and a documentary on Channel 4, I argued for a change in policy to broaden the scope of the dialogue.
“The influence of Ruth Kelly has been hugely significant in this respect.”
Martin Bright in the New Statesman, 9 April 2007
US Muslims fear Islamophobia following workplace controversies
The recent controversies involving teetotaler Muslim cabbies and the Target cashier who wouldn’t ring up pork products touched off a barrage of comments on newspaper Web sites and blogs. The tone of some of these comments is frightening to local Muslims.
“Too bad our troops can’t kill them fast enough,” said one of the more than 900 comments posted on Buzz.mn, which first reported the Target incident. Muslim leaders said comments like this are on the rise, and they are calling it: “Islamophobia.”
“Islamophobia is a distrust or fear of anything that has to do with Islam,” explained Haris Tarin, director of community development at the California-based Muslim Public Affairs Council or MPAC. Speaking at a seminar in Minneapolis on Thursday, Tarin said the anti-Muslim rhetoric is driven by a “group of people who want to see the voice of Muslims marginalized in America.”
The vehicle used by these groups, Tarin said, is a new controversial documentary called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” Under a backdrop of 9/11 scenes, the Madrid bombings and the London bombings, the film intersperses Muslim prayers with Nazi rallies.
“The idea is to instill a fear among Americans about Islam,” said Tarin.
Australian media accused of Islamaphobia
British firebrand Yvonne Ridley has accused Australia’s media of being hostile towards Muslims, as Labor demanded to know why the Islamic convert was allowed into the country.
The former investigative reporter, in Melbourne for a major religious conference, was quoted in news reports saying Australians were among the world’s worst Muslim haters. But Ms Ridley said her comments were wrongly recorded and she had no problem with the Australian people – only the Australian media, which she accused of Islamophobia.
“The time has come to change the media attitudes towards Muslims in this country,” she told the annual Australian Islamic Conference at the University of Melbourne, staged by non-profit Muslim group, Mercy Mission. “What I actually said to the journalist was there is a horrendous problem of Islamophobia in Australia – it isn’t the ordinary citizens, it’s the media.”
“It’s very, very sad the way the media has reacted,” she said. “Suddenly I’m no more a British journalist, I’m a firebrand Islamic convert. “I’ve always been quite outspoken in my views but I didn’t become an extremist until I put on a hijab.”
Meanwhile, Labor leader Kevin Rudd called on the federal government to explain why Ms Ridley was allowed to enter Australia.