No federal charges will be lodged against the city man who rolled a pig’s head into a local mosque last year. Brent Matthews, 33, said the frozen head slipped from his hands one night last summer and rolled through the open door of the Lisbon Street storefront that serves as a mosque for members of the Somali community.
Lewiston Sun Journal, 27 January 2007
See also Associated Press, 27 January 2007
On Jan. 19, Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends” took a turn for the worse when one of the most recent, inexcusable examples of yellow journalism and “Islamophobia” occurred by an attempted exploitation of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood.
Obama, a converted Christian, was smeared as a potential covert anti-American terrorist with the announcement that Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa more than 35 years ago while living with his Muslim stepfather in Indonesia.
Madrassa literally means “school” in Arabic, but Fox took this news as if Obama is a potential threat to America’s security as a potential president while continually announcing that Obama’s middle name is Hussein.
“Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy said the first thing they teach in madrassas is to “hate America” and said that Obama’s first 10 years of his life were spent in Indonesia hating America.
Western movies from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “Aladdin” promote negative stereotypes of Muslims by casting them all too often as villains, a British Muslim pressure group said on Thursday.
“There is no such thing as a Muslim good guy,” said Arzu Merali, co-author of a report by the Islamic Human Rights Commission that argued that movies played a crucial role in fostering a crude and exaggerated image.
The commission’s study, based on soundings taken from almost 1,250 British Muslims, also found that 62 percent felt the media was “Islamophobic” and 14 percent called it racist.
“Cinema, both in Hollywood and Britain, has helped to demonise Muslims. They are portrayed as violent and backward. That reinforces prejudices,” Merali told Reuters. “This stretches back before the 9/11 attacks in the United States,” said Merali, head of research at the campaigning body.
The report pointed the finger of blame as far back as the 1981 blockbuster “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in which “the cultural stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious” as veiled women hurry through the bazaar to snake-charming music.
The 1998 film “The Siege” starring Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington was accused of reinforcing “the monolithic stereotype of the Arab/Palestinian/Muslim being violent and ready to be martyred for their cause.” Disney’s cartoon was criticized for describing Aladdin’s homeland as “barbaric.”
The report called for British film censors to be given greater power to cut out “objectionable material” and said media watchdogs in Britain should be more effective in ensuring “responsible coverage” of Muslims.
See also Guardian, 25 January 2007 and IHRC press release, 25 January 2007
In a show of unity, religious leaders linked arms Thursday in front of a Detroit mosque that was vandalized this week with graffiti that read “Go Home 9-11 Murderers.”
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Arab leaders joined together at the old Islamic Center of America to condemn the attack, the latest in a string of crimes directed against Islamic houses of worship in metro Detroit. The attack on the center is “unacceptable to people of faith,” said Rabbi Josh Bennett, of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
The gathering was organized by the Detroit-based Interfaith Partners program of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. The attacks are “an expression of ignorance,” said the Rev. Dan Appleyard, of Christ Episcopal Church in Dearborn. Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Thursday’s event “was an example of America at its best.”
“For former practicing criminal attorney turned author, W.G. Van Dorian, the news of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque beside the London 2012 Olympic Park confirmed what he has feared all along – the intent of radical Islamists to gain a majority and ultimately control of the world’s powers.”
Why is a former Dutch lawyer currently resident in South Africa interfering over the issue of a proposed Islamic Centre in Newham? Drumming up publicity in preparation for the publication of his next novel perhaps? Van Dorian’s first book, The Invisible Invasion, would appear to be a paranoid fantasy about the Islamist takeover of Europe (see here). According to his publishers, as a defence lawyer for Muslims in the Netherlands, Van Dorian:
“… had access to shocking information, things not normally revealed to outsiders. He states, ‘I’ve heard a couple of times from them when I gained their trust that they were simply waiting for a majority through immigration and forced conversion in Europe to take over, violently if need be’. Van Dorian witnessed the power of this force in Europe as the extremists ultimately knocked down resistance from ‘ordinary citizens’ and obtained what they wanted…. one of the most terrifying comments that Van Dorian heard was: ‘Just wait until there are enough of us and we’ll be the boss around here’.”
Daniel Johnson applauds Daniel Pipes’ contribution to last weekend’s Clash of Civilisations debate in London:
“In essence, Mr. Pipes had a warning for Londoners: Thanks to the multicultural policies of politicians like Mayor Livingstone, ‘your city is a threat to the rest of the world’. He listed 15 countries in which Islamists from Britain had carried out terrorist attacks, ranging from Pakistan to America. Since last weekend he could have added a 16th – Somalia.
“Britain, he said, was now regarded by some experts as the biggest threat to American security. British audiences aren’t usually told this. They aren’t told that ‘the Islamists have declared war on us’, let alone have the war aim stated clearly: victory. They need to hear the likes of Daniel Pipes much more often.”
Robert Spencer joins Little Green Footballs and the British National Party in enthusiastically endorsing “the Dispatches documentary that recently uncovered Islamic supremacism being preached in mosques that had been considered moderate. This underscores the necessity of doing what so few dare to do: discuss the elements of Islam that are fueling the jihad.”
Osama Saeed comments on the media furore over the reported request by a Muslim WPC that she should not be forced to shake the hands of male colleagues, including Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair:
“Despite her superiors being informed well in advance of the issue, you would think given the media coverage that she was standing in a row of people having their hands shaken and when her turn with Sir Ian came she whipped her hand back, put her thumb on her nose and wiggled her fingers about while blowing a raspberry.”
Osama points out that this is just the latest in a series of leaks from within the police force that have been used by the right-wing press to stoke up Islamophobia.
Rolled Up Trousers, 23 January 2007
Readers may like to compare Osama’s reasoned and informed analysis with the ignorant dogmatism of Brett Lock’s recent post at Harry’s Place.
Leaders of a Leyton mosque have criticised a television documentary associating them with international Islamic extremism.
The Masjid-al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton High Road appeared in Undercover Mosque, a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary screened last week. The programme focused on extremist preachers encouraging congregations to practise violence against women, homosexuals and non-Muslims.
Among those featured was Shaykh Suhaib Hassan, senior Imam at Masjid-al-Tawhid. He was quoted predicting the establishment of an Islamic state under Sharia law and detailing some of the extreme punishments, such as flogging of drunkards, that would be carried out in such a state.
Shaykh Hassan says, however, that his remarks were taken out of context, and that he has never said Sharia law would be appropriate for Britain. “Britain is a democracy, and I have said many times that Muslims should participate in elections. It is a good system,” he said. “Why blame a western country for not implementing Sharia law when Muslim states like Pakistan do not?”
Shaykh Hassan is also unhappy at being associated with more extreme imams who preach brutality and violent jihad. “It was a gross misrepresentation. We don’t say kill the Jews, kill the Christians, it’s nonsense,” he told the Guardian.
Masjid-al-Tawhid was also featured in The War Within, another documentary screened by CNN during the weekend, which also tackled the subject of Islamic extremism in Britain. But CNN held up Masjid-al-Tawhid as an example of a mosque able to practise a traditional form of Islam without withdrawing from the wider community.
Police are holding a review of much-criticised “stop and search” powers over concerns the tactic used to target possible terrorists was causing more harm than good by alienating the Muslim community.
Senior officers are warming to “new thinking” about the powers which would see people only stopped on the basis of prior intelligence and not their appearance, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
“I think we need to move from the concept of stopping on appearance and ethnicity,” Richard Gargini, ACPO’s national coordinator for community engagement, told Reuters at a conference to discuss Islamophobia. “I sense an atmosphere among police leaders that it’s time to reflect upon where we go with stop and search. Is it having an adverse impact on police and community relations?”
Under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, officers have the power to stop and search people in an area seen as being at risk from terrorism even if they are not suspected of any breach of the law.
Many Muslim groups have argued the powers have been abused by police, particularly after the bomb attacks on July 7, 2005 when four British Islamists killed 52 people on London’s transport system.
Figures show that use of the power against those of Asian appearance has rocketed since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and Muslim community leaders have warned it has helped alienate Britain’s Muslims, so helping the cause of extremists. “We know the levels of trust and confidence that the community has in the police has gone down,” Azad Ali, chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum, which advises police on Islamic issues, told Reuters.