US congressman asked to apologize for anti-Muslim remarks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Keith EllisonThe Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) tonight called on Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) to apologize for anti-Muslim remarks he made in a recent letter to a constituent.

Goode’s letter to the head of the local Sierra Club chapter slammed the planned use of a Quran for the ceremonial swearing-in of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. (No religious texts of any kind are used for the official swearing-in ceremony.)

“I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way,” wrote Goode. “The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

Goode also decried the growth of the American Muslim community. He wrote, “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.” (Keith Ellison has traced his family’s roots in America to the year 1742.)

“Representative Goode’s Islamophobic remarks send a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office,” said CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor. “There can be no reasonable defense for such bigotry.”

CAIR news release, 19 December 2006

‘Muslim dinners for church kids’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Pupils at a Church of England school are only able to eat Muslim meals because of a council ruling. The only meat on the menu at the primary school is halal – where animals are controversially bled to death. Children have been eating the meat for up to SEVENTEEN years at FOUR schools in Reading, Berkshire, without parents’ knowledge, the council admitted yesterday. The fact emerged after pupils were given letters from canteen managers to take home. Islamic law insists on halal meat, produced by slashing an animal’s neck with a single cut. Animals are not stunned beforehand. Parents are furious at the revelation.”

The Sun, 18 December 2006

Update: See also Christian Today, 19 December 2006

Stand by for the BNP to pick up on this story as an example of the so-called “Islamicisation of Britain”.

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 18 December 2006

Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EUMC report December 2006Muslims are suffering physical attacks, verbal taunts and widespread discrimination as a climate of Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe.

A new report lists a host of examples of crime and intimidation from arson and suspected racist murder in Germany and Spain to pork fat being smeared on a mosque in Italy.

Thugs in Ireland beat up one man after calling him “bin Laden” while a bogus email in Denmark outlined fake primary school reforms to help migrant children. A maths question read: “Jamal has an AK47 with a 30-shot magazine. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and he wants to hit each cup 13 times, how many cups can he shoot before he needs to reload?”

The report from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia called on leaders to strengthen policies on integration, and on Muslims to “engage more actively in public life.” It also highlights the lack of reliable data, pointing out that only one country – the United Kingdom – publishes criminal justice data which specifically identify Muslims as victims of hate crime incidents.

The Muslim population of the EU is estimated to run to around 13m, around 3.5 per cent of the total. Since September 11 many feel “they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism,” according to Beate Winkler, director of the centre.

The report says that Muslims “experience various levels of discrimination and marginalisation in employment, education and housing” and are “vulnerable to manifestations of prejudice and hatred in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property.”

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‘Ministers compared to Nazis over Islam stigma’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

dr bariFollowing on from the Sunday Times attack on Osama Saeed, we have yet another attempt to misrepresent a leading figure in the Muslim community as claiming that Muslims in the UK today are in the same position as Jews in Nazi Germany. This time it’s Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, who is accused by the Torygraph of comparing government ministers to Nazis.

Sunday Telegraph, 18 December 2006

In fact, on the basis of the Torygraph’s own report, Dr Bari did nothing of the sort. In almost identical terms to those used by Osama Saeed, he warned of the possible consequences of a systematic campaign of vilification amed at a minority community, asking: “What is the degree of xenophobia that tipped Germany in the 1930s towards a murderous ethnic and cultural racism?”

Predictably, Jon Benjamin of the Board of Deputies backs the Torygraph’s attack on Dr Bari. He is quoted as saying: “To try to recast modern Britain as equivalent to Nazi Germany is equally offensive and disingenuous, but also dangerous in that it will fuel alienation and anger, particularly at a time when conciliation is vital.”

Yes, well Benjamin would know all about building good relations between communities wouldn’t he? This is the man who was reported as describing the Mayor of London as “a lackey of the Muslim agenda in this country“.

See also Western Resistance, 17 December 2006

Khadija Ravat pulls out of ‘alternative Christmas message’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Daily Telegraph reports that Khadija Ravat, who was due to deliver Channel 4’s “alternative Christmas message” has pulled out of the programme. A spokesman for Channel 4, however, is quoted as saying that they are trying to find another Muslim woman to replace her.

A “source close to the programme makers” is quoted as saying that Khadija had been “pressurised by senior members of the community who felt it was not her place to talk about Islam”. More likely, it was pointed out that Channel 4’s provocative stunt could only play into the hands of anti-Muslim bigots intent on portraying Islam as an alien ideology.

Melbourne protesters march against racism

Posted on by Eddie Truman

An estimated 1,500 anti-racism protesters marched through the Melbourne CBD on Friday night.

The rally attracted protesters from the Socialist Alliance, the Greens Party and the Civil Rights Defence group. It stopped traffic as it weaved its way through the city to the Liberal Party state offices in Exhibition Street.

Organiser Kim Bullimore says the riots in Sydney have shown that political leaders lack the will to combat racism. “What we need is some leadership … actually take a stand,” she said. “I’m here today because I think that Muslim and Arab people should be welcome in our country,” one protester said.

Another said: “These riots have happened in Sydney due to tension that’s been building up for a long time. We don’t believe in a divided Australia.”

ABC News, 16 December 2005

Florida web host asked to drop ‘kill all Muslim kids’ site

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rightwing HowlerThe Tampa, Fla., office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Tampa) is calling on an Internet web hosting company in that state to drop a hate site that supports calls to “kill all Muslim kids”.

Under the headline, “Love Your Kids? Fear For Their Future? Kill All Muslim Kids!!!!”, the website’s owner, who lives in the Tampa area, wrote: “Makes sense to me. After all, if Muslims are raising their little crumb-snatching, curtain climbing, ankle biting rug rats to strap on bombs in order to kill us, it is logically correct to assume that in order to stop that from happening we need to kill all Muslim kids. Starting now.”

Other entries on the site contain obscene and hate-filled attacks on Islam and Muslims, as well as support for violent actions. One entry states: “It’s bad enough some [expletive deleted] in Minnesota elect a Muslim to Congress but the people in Michigan might have done them one better… Start sticking [sic] up on guns and ammo. The war will start soon.”

In a letter to Boca Raton-based Hostgator.com LLC, CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Ahmed Bedier wrote: “While we respect an individual’s right to freedom of speech, we oppose hate-filled speech that calls for violence against innocent people. . .It’s clear that [the website is] in violation of your company’s ‘Terms of Service’ agreement which states: ‘…Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene or threatening is prohibited and will be removed from our servers with or without notice.’ The agreement also clearly defines ‘hate sites’ under ‘Examples of unacceptable material.'”

Bedier asked Hostgator to stop hosting the site. He noted that CAIR had raised concerns about the anti-Muslim site at a local forum on hate crimes in November.

CAIR press release, 14 December 2006

Christian right in Australia given green light to incite hatred against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Christian pastors found to have vilified Muslims stood on the steps of the Court of Appeal yesterday after the ruling was overturned and vowed to keep telling “the truth” about Islam.

Pastor Daniel Scot, who conducted the 2002 seminar on jihad that led to the case under Victoria’s religious hatred laws, said: “Some Muslims have got the idea they have to hide the truth, and that’s very sad.” Insisting that he would continue his seminars on the Koran and Hadiths (Islam’s sacred texts), he said: “People should know it from the primary sources, and not be misled by politically correct teachers who don’t know the reality of Islam and want to glorify it with false pretensions and assumptions.”

Uniting Church justice spokesman Mark Zirnsak said he hoped the judgement would not be seen as a green light for groups to incite racial or religious hatred, believing that the law had been watered down. “There are groups who may be emboldened to test what they can get away with. People might be assaulted or insulted or mistreated because of their race or religion – that’s been our key concern.”

The Age, 15 December 2006

Mad Mel hails “a step forward down under“.

Cases of detained Muslims tarnish Canadian Mounties’ image

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Canada’s top law enforcement agency has been shaken by the aftershocks of its role in the abduction of a Canadian Muslim in 2002, when U.S. agents transported the man from New York for interrogation under torture in Syria.

Last week, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police resigned, even though he had already apologized publicly to the victim, Maher Arar. On Tuesday, the government announced new inquiries into the cases of three other Canadian Muslims who had been imprisoned in Syria, and a judicial commission recommended broad new oversight of the RCMP’s intelligence arm.

The spotlight on the RCMP resulted from a two-year judicial inquiry into the case of Arar, now 36, who was stopped while changing flights at an airport in New York City in 2002. The Canadian citizen was bound, blindfolded and spirited to his native Syria by U.S. agents for questioning about terrorism.

Arar was kept for 10 months, much of it in a coffin-like dungeon, and tortured before being released without charges to return to Canada. In September, the extensive inquiry concluded that Arar was an innocent computer programmer who was named as an “Islamic extremist” because of fabrications and incompetence by an overzealous Mountie intelligence operation.

Washington Post, 15 December 2006