Anti-racist groups withdraw support for CRE race conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CRE RIPLeading anti-racist groups are withdrawing support for a Commission for Racial Equality conference.

The CRE’s Race Convention is being criticised for being over-priced and for having “inflammatory” titles for workshops. The 1990 Trust and other organisations are also concerned about the CRE’s event being sponsored by a bank with links to the slave trade.

The campaigning body has joined forces with many other BME groups to organise an alternative race conference, called the Race & Faith Leadership Summit. This event will have free entry and will discuss the real concerns of Black communities and will run on the same day as the CRE’s Race Convention.

The Race & Faith Leadership Summit will take place next Monday (27th November 2006) at London’s City Hall, SE1.

This event is supported by dozens of organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain, the National Black Police Association, and the public sector union UNISON.

For more details, and to register, log on to: http://www.blink.org.uk/docs/rsflyer.htm

BLINK news report, 21 November 2006

Anti-Islam Danish book withdrawn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Danish publishing house has decided to withdraw a book offensive to Muslims after protests by Muslim leaders in the Scandinavian country. “After scrutinizing the complaints, Malling Beck Co. decided to take Os og Kristendom (Us and Christianity) 5 off bookstores,” the publishing house said in a statement obtained by IslamOnline.net. Malling Beck Director Lars Tindholdt had initially defended the authors before reconsidering his position after the mass-circulation daily Politiken ran a report on the contents of the book on Monday, November 20.

The book was listed on the curricula of third-ninth grades under the Christianity subject. It tackles Islam in a chapter entitled “terrorism.” The first pages of the chapter remind students of the grisly Beslan massacre in Russia, when armed Chechens took hundreds of students hostage. The book associates Muslims with terrorism and also outlines the terrorist 9/11 attacks with a profile of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The newspaper said the first thing Danish students learn about Islam and Muslims is all about horror and panic. “It sends the message that Muslims are the root cause of terrorism in this world,” it added.

IslamOnline, 21 November 2006

Historic rally condemns Islamophobia and attack on liberties and freedoms

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anas AltikritiIn what was an almost unprecedented representation of all facets of Britain speaking from the same stage, the rally co-organised by the British Muslim Initiative and Liberty on Monday, 20th of November, unequivocally condemned the recent spate of attacks on Islam and Muslims, and pledged to fight the erosion of civil liberties and freedom of thought and conscience.

The hundreds who attended the event at the Westminster Methodist Central Hall listened to the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, as well as representative from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Respect and Green Parties, speakers from the Christian, Muslim,Jewish and Sikh faiths as well as delegates from trade unions, the anti-war movement and the world of media and arts.

Anas Altikriti [pictured], spokesman for BMI who chaired the event, said afterwards: “The line-up said it all. Muslims do not stand alone in facing the barrage of racist attacks levelled against them, nor do others of any faith or of thought who see what is dear to them being systematically disparaged and compromised. Despite the broad spectrum from which the speakers came from, the message was almost one and the same: the people of this country will not stand by and watch the Muslim community or any other, be attacked, vilified, demonised or marginalised by a minor sector laden with either ignorance or racist tendencies, or possibly both”.

Altikriti added: “It was fascinating to see that almost all the speakers touched on the problem we all faced with politicians and the policies we have both at home and overseas in creating the present climate and exacerbating the problems faced by Muslims and many others and allowing the extreme-right and the racist elements in society ground to spread their rhetoric and deeds of hate.”

The rally will serve as a first step towards holding a conference by the end of January from which a new broad and far reaching formal coalition will emerge to defend freedom of religion and culture and tackle the problem of Islamophobia, unanimously condemned last night as the new face of racism in our midst.

BMI news report, 21 November 2006

See also Mathaba.net, 21 November 2006

‘Fanatics – fit in or ship out’, says Jon Gaunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jon_Gaunt“The Dutch are right to ban the Burka and we should do the same. It’s not a religious obligation and is increasingly being worn as an act of defiance against the majority way of life.

“Hiding your face isn’t about modesty, it’s about cowardice and a refusal to engage with the host society. It is intended to separate out these women from the mainstream. It is a sign of subjugation, even indoctrination, that women are second-class citizens.

“Well, at the risk of upsetting these extremists, I’m afraid I want to live in a society where women are equal and where my two beautiful girls have the same opportunity as boys. I can’t see how they can get that if they’re dressed to make them almost invisible from modern society.

“Inayat Bunglawala, a man obviously, from the Muslim Council of Britain, has reacted with horror to the Dutch proposals, saying: ‘One of the most wonderful things about living in Britain is freedom of association.’ How the hell can you associate with someone whose face you can’t see? How does dressing like a 14th-Century Dalek encourage freedom of association? The answer is that it clearly doesn’t.

“Our politicians should stop playing to the minorities and listen to the majority of Brits who are sick to the back teeth of this vocal but small band of religious extremists who want to spread division at every opportunity. We should ban the Burka, lift the veil and tell these fanatics to fit in or ship out.”

Jon Gaunt in The Sun, 21 November 2006

Far-right racists make gains in Belgium on anti-Muslim platform

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vlaams BelangAnti-immigrant sentiment is spreading across Europe, boosting support for populist, right-wing parties. One of the most successful is in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Backers of the party, known as Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest Party) criticize Muslim immigrants for failing to assimilate. In the Vlaams Belang’s stronghold of Hoboken, on the outskirts of Antwerp, the party soared in local elections last month. It won 41 percent of the vote, far ahead of all other parties.

Sitting at the bar of a smoky cafe, school bus driver Eric Delawer says this working-class town used to vote socialist. But in recent years, with the influx of large numbers of Muslim immigrants, he says the people of Hoboken have turned to Vlaams Belang. “The immigrants don’t integrate,” he says. “They separate themselves from us. They want to stay among themselves. I say, if they don’t adapt to our customs, the only option is to send them back to their home countries.”

“We are not in favor of the famous multicultural society,” says Filip Dewinter, the party’s leader. “We do not have a problem with legal immigrants if they are willing to assimilate to our culture, our way of life, our values,” he says. “But we can’t allow that they come to our country, that they come to Europe, and they keep their own culture, their own religion – Islamic religion – which is not always compatible with our way of life, our culture.”

NPR, 21 November 2006

Mad Mel goes to Philadelphia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmelMelanie Phillips has been wowing her right-wing audience at Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. Joseph Puder reports:

“‘Britain stands at the precipice.’ Such is the view of British journalist Melanie Phillips in her recently published book, Londonistan, in which she argues that Britain and Europe are facing a civilizational test – and they are in danger of failing….

“In her book, Phillips pieces together the story of how Londonistan developed. Britain, she points out, is experiencing a collapse of self-confidence and national identity. The result is a paralyzing multiculturalism as well as a powerful instinct for appeasing extremists. In her remarks last week, Phillips suggested that the current climate threatens to ‘undermine the alliance with America and imperil the defense of the free world’….

“What Britons do not grasp, Phillips argues, is that they are in a war with an enemy that seeks to destroy them and impose an Islamic way of life governed by Sharia law – the latest polls indicate that 40 to 60 percent of British Muslims want Sharia law to govern Britain – thereby destroying their democratic institutions and nullifying their individual freedoms. ‘We do not understand in Britain that we are fighting a religious war. Instead, we’re appeasing it’, Phillips said.”

Front Page Magazine, 21 November 2006

6 imams removed from flight at US airport after 3 conduct traditional prayers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.

The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m. Monday, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

“They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way,” said Omar Shahin, of Phoenix.

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, California, he said.

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam. “I never felt bad in my life like that,” he said. “I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It’s terrible.”

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed anger at the detentions.

“CAIR will be filing a complaint with relevant authorities in the morning over the treatment of the imams to determine whether the incident was caused by anti-Muslim hysteria by the passengers and/or the airline crew,” Hooper said. “Because, unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it’s one that we’ve been addressing for some time.”

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