9/11 museum film draws heat for portrayal of Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

9-11 MuseumA film that will be shown at the National September 11 Memorial Museum when it opens next month unfairly links Islam and terrorism, clergy members said in letters demanding it be changed.

“The Rise of Al Qaeda,” a brief documentary narrated by NBC anchor Brian Williams, shows the growth of international terrorist groups in the years leading up to the 2001 attacks. The film has not been publicly released, but museum officials have screened it for groups including an interfaith clergy advisory panel.

Members of the clergy group sent a letter to museum officials this week asking that the film be re-edited to make it clear that not all Muslims support the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center.

“We continue to posit that the video may very well leave viewers with the impression that all Muslims bear some collective guilt or responsibility for the actions of al-Qaida, or even misinterpret its content to justify bigotry or even violence toward Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim (e.g., Sikhs),” the clergy members wrote. The signers included Peter B. Gudaitis, chief executive of New York Disaster Interfaith Services, and the Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York.

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Ukip member in election broadcast suspended over racist tweets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Andre LampittThe UK Independence party has suspended one of its five supporters chosen to appear on its first European election broadcast after it emerged he had posted a series of racist and Islamaphobic tweets that also condemned Ed Miliband as “a Pole” and called for Africans to be left alone to kill themselves.

The election broadcast featured builder Andre Lampitt criticising eastern European immigration. He said: “Since the lads from eastern Europe are prepared to work for a lot less than anybody else, I’ve found it a real struggle.” In common with the other Ukip supporters featured on the broadcast Lampitt is not named.

After the tweets came to light, a Ukip spokesman said: “We are deeply shocked that Mr Lampitt has expressed such repellent views. His membership of the party has been suspended immediately pending a full disciplinary process.”

Lampitt’s offensive and potentially unlawful tweets have been posted in the past few months. He describes Islam as a Satanic religion and claims Nigerians are bad people.

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has repeatedly claimed he cannot control all the views of his party membership and insisted his posters are not designed to encourage racism. But Lampitt was handpicked by Ukip headquarters to represent the views of working-class people in the UK, and it appears no checks were made to examine his wider opinions.

Lampitt describes himself as “Born British in Rhodesia”. In one tweet he claimed that Islam is not a religion and called it an “evil organisation”. Another says: “Get over it, slavery was an act of war. you lost stop being so damn jealous and move forward.”

He also said he wants to start a website called Islamoutofuk.co.uk. He tweeted: “Most Nigerians are generally bad people I grew up in Africa and dare anyone to prove me wrong.”

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Mayoral candidate tries to exploit Mufreesboro Islamic Center controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jimmy Evans campaign leafletMURFREESBORO — County mayoral candidate Jimmy Evans stands by a flyer he sent out depicting the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro praising incumbent Mayor Ernest Burgess.

“Thank you Ernest Burgess,” the flyer states to serve as a translation for what appears to be Arabic writing related to the government approving the ICM. “Without you, the Mosque would not be possible!” “That’s true,” Evans said during an interview in his office at his car dealership on Northwest Broad Street in Murfreesboro. “Without Mayor Burgess, the mosque would not be possible.”

The front page of the advertisement that displays the name “Ernest Burgess,” shows Arabic writing, images of mosque structures with a sun in the background and then adds “See translation inside …” But the American Center of Outreach, a local Muslim advocacy group, said the Arabic letters first appeared to be gibberish but actually are the intended words backward and without proper punctuation or spacing for the language.

Evans is running against Burgess in the May 6 Republican primary for Rutherford County offices. Early voting is going on through May 1 for the GOP primary. The general election is Aug. 7.

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French minister backs football headscarf ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thierry BraillardFrance’s new sports minister Thierry Braillard has backed the French Football Federation’s decision to uphold their ban on headscarves for players despite pressure from FIFA.

Last Sunday on beIN SPORTS, FIFA president Sepp Blatter declared the FFF had no choice other than to follow his organisation’s directive that women players should be allowed to wear head coverings during official games.

The FIFA ruling is contrary to French law, however, with all signs of religious affiliation, regardless of the denomination, banned in official state-connected institutions.

“The position taken by the FFF and its president Noel Le Graet has our wholehearted support, because it would be necessary to remind Mr Blatter that the French state has declared its attachment to the values of the Republic and that Republican principles, notably the principle of an entirely secular state, are in force in sporting arenas,” the freshly appointed Braillard told RTL.

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Ofsted hunt for Islamist ‘infiltration’ was harrowing says headteacher

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Birmingham headteacher whose school was among 18 in the city inspected as part of an investigation into alleged infiltration by Muslim fundamentalists has described the experience as harrowing.

Christine Quinn, the executive principal of Ninestiles academy, in Acocks Green, confirmed that Ofsted inspectors commissioned by the education secretary, Michael Gove, had visited the school before the Easter break.

She said the inspectors had insisted they had not received any complaints or concerns about the Birmingham school, which received Ofsted’s highest rating of “outstanding” last October, but that she understood it was in the context of investigations into Operation Trojan Horse, an alleged Islamist plot to take over schools in Birmingham. The visit was a surprise, she said, and “somewhat harrowing, in that it was unlike any other inspection”.

The inspectors checked whether the school taught citizenship and sex education, she said. “They were trying to establish whether we had the mechanisms in place to know if elements of radicalism or extremism were in our school, and whether we knew how to recognise it, and that we had an extensive policies on citizenship, personal, social and health education – those sort of things – to counteract any such elements.”

Inspectors also wanted to know how Quinn could be sure that any guests invited to speak at the school were bona fide and that teachers could not “sneak them into a lesson unnoticed”. In addition, the Ofsted representatives wanted reassurance that the school carefully monitored who it let rooms to, and which charities benfited from pupils collecting during bake sales and other fundraising drives.

Quinn said she had yet to receive the inspection report after the inspectors’ visit, but “the sooner all the reports are published, the better for all schools in Birmingham”.

Other schools investigated in recent weeks have complained about the behaviour of Ofsted inspectors.

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