Khadija Ravat won’t be watching Channel 4 programme

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The veiled Muslim woman signed up by Channel 4 to do their Christmas Day message will not be watching herself on TV – she will be watching the Queen. Khadija Ravat’s six-minute address will go out at 3pm, exactly the same time as the Queen’s annual broadcast. But yesterday, the 33-year-old teacher described herself as a patriotic Brit who has no intention of tuning into C4’s alternative Christmas Day message.

She said: “Believe me, I’m going to be watching the Queen’s speech. I like being British, being British has so much to it that can be shared by so many people.” She denied the C4 scheduling was divisive and said she wanted to build bridges between different communities.

Khadija, who teaches at a private Islamic school in Leicester, added: “We live in a fantastic society. We are all British. We have so many wonderful people around and I hope that we all respect each other. My world is so wonderful. Wherever I look, there are different colours, different people. Sometimes we disagree but we respect each other. That is why I will use the six minutes to put over a really positive message. I want to build bridges.”

Asked if it was provocative for a veiled Muslim to offer an alternative message to the Queen’s, she said: “I have never thought of it that way.”

Daily Mirror, 7 December 2006

Meanwhile, today’s Daily Star reports that 94% of its readers have called for the broadcast to be banned.

New York Police anti-terrorism analyst sues over anti-Muslim e-mails

Posted on by Bob Pitt

For several years, the New York Police Department has touted an elite undercover unit of mostly Middle Eastern and Asian investigators who use their foreign-language skills online to search out potential terrorist threats against the city. But now the department is under criticism from a member of the unit, an Egyptian-born analyst who filed a suit yesterday that charges he was subjected to hundreds of blistering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab e-mail messages sent out by a city contractor over the course of three years. In an interview yesterday, he said he complained repeatedly to supervisors but that no one took action.

At the center of the lawsuit are e-mail briefing messages sent out several times a day to members of the Intelligence Division by Bruce Tefft, a former C.I.A. official who has identified himself in the past as the Police Department’s counter-terrorism adviser. The e-mail messages were sent to everyone in the division, including Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, also a former C.I.A. official, the suit said.

According to the suit, the briefing messages were preceded by commentary from Mr. Tefft that included virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements like, “Burning the hate-filled Koran should be viewed as a public service at the least”, and “This is not a war against terrorism … it is against Islam and we are not winning”. In one, he asked, “Has the U.S. threatened to vaporize Mecca?” and responded, “Excellent idea, if true.”

New York Times, 6 December 2006

Woman in veil ‘sparks fury’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Channel 4 has sparked fury by planning an “alternative” Christmas Day message delivered by a Muslim woman in a veil.

Radical Khadija Ravat, who lectures on Islam, will appear on its screens while the Queen is giving her traditional afternoon speech on the other channels. Mrs Ravat’s talk is expected to focus on the heated debate about the veil following the recent case of teacher Aishah Azmi losing her battle to wear it in the classroom.

Evangelical lobby group Christian Voice’s Stephen Green said the alternative message will “put people’s backs up”. He added: “The niqab is a veil of separation between Muslims and the indigenous Christian community. This will expose multi-culturalism for what it is – a bias against the Christian population.”

Tory MP Philip Davies, who represents Shipley, West Yorkshire, said: “It seems Channel 4 is being provocative towards Christians. I would recommend listening to what the Queen has to say. Kick Channel 4 into the long grass. You would think that for one day of the year, during what is still just about a Christian festival, they could leave political correctness alone.”

Mrs Ravat, 33, a radical Islamist from Leicester, spoke out about the veil after ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw declared it made community relations more difficult.

Daily Express, 6 December 2006

Call me an old sceptic, but given Channel 4’s past record in stoking up Islamophobia you suspect this is the exactly reaction they set out to provoke.

Australian mosque to get police guard for bikini rally

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lakemba mosquePolice have been asked to protect Australia’s largest mosque next weekend because of concerns that a bikini march staged to coincide with the anniversary of the Cronulla riots may get out of control.

The caretaker of Lakemba Mosque, the Lebanese Muslim Association, says it is taking no risks, requesting at least 32 police officers to protect the place of worship on Saturday and Sunday. Association president Tom Zreik said he met police on several occasions to ensure there would be adequate numbers of officers present to defuse problems and arrest troublemakers.

“We are treating this as something that is funny and hilarious but also taking precautions,” Mr Zreika said of the bikini march. “Some people may see this as provocation and the last thing that we want is to see anyone being attacked.”

The organiser, Melbourne grandmother Christine Hawkins, has asked women nationally to dress in bikinis and colourful beachwear and rally outside large mosques to show their disgust at comments by leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, who likened women to “uncovered meat”. A white supremacist website has promoted the march.

Members of Sydney’s Muslim community began raising their concerns last week, with hundreds joining an internet discussion to find a “peaceful avenue” to protect their mosque.

Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December 2006

The old ‘multiculturalism causes terrorism’ myth

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Commenting on the report “Migrants face new ‘Britishness’ test” the Telegraph takes the opportunity to repeat the usual right-wing, anti-multiculturalist nonsense about the causes of 7/7:

“The terrorist bombings of London’s transport system on 7 July, 2005, and their failed sequel two weeks later, brought a sharp public realisation that Britain’s attitude to absorbing immigrants needed to be rethought.

“For innocent civilians to be murdered in their scores in an indiscriminate attack was appalling, but even more shocking was the revelation that these acts had been planned by British-born Muslims: young men who had been raised and educated in this country, but clearly did not feel themselves to be a part of it. In the analysis and debate that followed these traumatic incidents, the scale of the problem became evident.

“Large communities of migrants were living in virtual cultural isolation in Britain. Often making no attempt to learn English, or to accept the national identity that they had adopted, these immigrant groups had been left to their own devices.

“The policy of multi-culturalism, which saw itself as tolerant and benign, had in effect encouraged them to remain tied to their old national or ethnic loyalties, rather than to participate in mainstream British life. The consequence of this failure to assimilate was a pernicious alienation that bred underachievement and a sense of grievance.”

Editorial in Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2006

Muslim and Jewish groups unite to condemn Prager

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conservative radio host and blogger Dennis Prager has now been criticized by both prominent Muslim and Jewish groups for his Townhall.com column attacking incoming Rep. Keith Ellison’s announcement that he will use a Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in as the first Muslim member of Congress.

Today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Prager should lose his presidential appointment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council because of “his intolerant views toward Islam in American Society.” Friday, the Anti-Defamation League said Prager’s position is “intolerant, misinformed and downright un-American.”

USA Today, 4 December 2006

Grieving dad can’t find son’s grave

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sajawal HussainA father, who has been unable to locate his baby’s grave since vandals removed the headstone, said he was heartbroken by another attack on the same Bradford cemetery.

Sajawal Hussain, 49, said he was devastated when he saw the destruction caused by vandals at Bowling Cemetery in Rooley Lane. About 40 gravestones in the Muslim part of the cemetery had been toppled and shattered, prompting a police investigation and high-visibility patrols.

Mr Hussain said the vandalism brought back memories of when the headstone on his son’s grave was stolen earlier this year. He said: “I can’t find my son’s grave any more, I don’t know where it is. It’s heartbreaking, words cannot explain.

Mr Hussain’s son, Ali Shan Ramzan, died in 1986 when he was only 16 hours old. His twin sister survived. Mr Hussain, who has two other daughters and two sons, said the stone marking his son’s grave had been quite small. “It was for a small child, it was just a stone,” he said.

After the marker was removed by vandals Mr Hussain spoke to his son’s funeral directors and cemetery managers who gave him the plot number and location of his son’s grave. But he said it was impossible to pinpoint the exact spot.

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Church bookshops stop selling Qur’an

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s oldest chain of church bookshops is to remove the Koran from its shelves because it believes it is “inimical” to Christianity. The decision not to stock any non-Christian holy text has been taken by SPCK Bookshops, formerly part of the 308-year-old Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In practice, the Koran is the only text affected because those of other religions such as Judaism and Hinduism were rarely stocked by the shops, which are located near many British cathedrals or in their precincts.

The new policy follows the society’s sale of a majority stake in the chain on November 1 to the St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, which is tied to the Eastern Orthodox church. “Stocking books which are inimical to Christianity, which without question the Koran is, could well create the wrong impression among some that we endorse the belief systems of other religions as equal or viable alternatives,” said Mark Brewer, the Texan lawyer who chairs the trust.

The stated aim of the trust is to take the bookshops back to the missionary roots of the SPCK and reverse the advance of Islam and secularism. The new approach is likely to offend some in the Church of England who promote a more accommodating approach to Muslims, but echoes recent calls by John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, to recover Christian values.

Sunday Times, 3 December 2006

Posted in UK

Prayer rooms would only aid terrorists, says Robert Spencer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following the forcible removal of six imams from a US Airways flight, officials at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport have said they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation. Robert Spencer is not impressed:

“Imagine how convenient it would have been for Muhammad Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari and the rest of them on 9/11 if they had had access to a place like this. They would have had a nice Muslims-only room where they could gather and arrange their boxcutters and other necessary materials in peace, go over details of strategy – and get in their final prayers. Now that would have been thoughtful airport service.”

Jihad Watch, 2 December 2006

Except that, if Spencer had bothered to read the report, instead of just gleefully seizing on an opportunity to asociate Islam with terrorism, he would see that the airport officials are not proposing a “Muslims-only room” but rather a private area for prayer and meditation generally.