How veil remarks reinforced its support

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jack_StrawJack Straw’s comments on veils have been good news for the owner of The Hijab Centre in the MP’s constituency of Blackburn. Nadeem Siddiqui tells me he is selling more veils than he did before his local MP made his controversial remarks.

Mr Siddiqui is the largest seller of veils in the area. “I used to sell two or three a week but now I am selling five to six. They are mainly being bought by young, British-born Muslim women,” he said. “These women are experimenting with the wearing of the niqab. Their mothers often do not cover themselves but they seem to want to do it.”

It is probably not the impact that Mr Straw intended when he wrote in his local newspapers that he felt uncomfortable when dealing face to face with veiled women. The majority of Muslims condemned Mr Straw over his comments. One month later, they are still upset.

“I voted for Mr Straw at the last election” says Mr Siddiqui. “I’m now reconsidering my support for him. Most of the people around here are doing the same because of what he said about the veil”.

British Muslims do not accept the argument that veiled women contribute to segregation or are a barrier to integration. Instead they feel they are being deliberately stigmatised as a problem community and are fearful of the future.

BBC News, 5 November 2006

BNP backs bish

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The fascist British National Party has applauded the anti-Muslim comments by the Bishop of Rochester. They are particularly taken with the Bishop’s observation, in relation to Muslims, that “there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made” – which is of course what the fascists themselves have repeatedly asserted.

The BNP’s Kent correspondent adds: “It is increasingly apparent that there are a growing number of people within the Church of England who are prepared to publicly express their concerns on issues related to the growth and influence of Islam in Britain in these troubled times – this is all to the good!”

BNP regional report, 5 November 2006

Charles Johnson is equally enthusiastic about the bishop’s call for an end to the appeasement of Islam: “This is exactly right, and has been borne out time and time again. It’s a primitive, tribal mentality that exists outside of rationality.”

Little Green Footballs, 5 November 2006

We have to deport terrorist suspects – whatever their fate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen 2“Everyone now condemns past governments for allowing London to become ‘Londonistan’, a centre for Islamist exiles”, Nick Cohen tells us. Do they, now? And would those “Islamist exiles” include people like Rashid al-Ghannoushi, perhaps? Presumably so, because as far as Cohen is concerned there is no principled difference between democratic Islamists and Al-Qaeda supporters.

Cohen continues: “A foreigner who MI5 says is a threat to national security has no right to refugee status.” Such touching faith in the reliability of Britain’s security services. And none of your liberal whingeing about people being entitled to a fair hearing, or having a right to question the evidence MI5 might claim to have against them.

No, Nick’s quite clear about it. There is no realistic alternative – the suspects will simply have to be deported back to their countries of origin. And if those countries are headed by dictatorial regimes that habitually use torture against oppositionists … well, that’s just tough.

Observer, 5 November 2006

See also Lenin’s Tomb, 5 November 2006

Anti-fascists express disgust at BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP NoAnti-fascist campaigners waving flags and placards gave BNP leader Nick Griffin a noisy reception as he arrived at Leeds Crown Court to answer race-hate charges yesterday. Mr Griffin was also greeted by a handful of far-right supporters as he arrived with co-defendant Mark Collett.

The BNP leader is charged over a speech he made in West Yorkshire in 2004, which was filmed by an undercover BBC reporter. Mr Collett faces four similar charges relating to two speeches that he made in the town during the same year.

Rodney Jameson QC opened the prosecution’s case by detailing the alleged racist remarks. He said that Mr Griffin had told a crowd at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, on January 19 2004, that Islam was a “wicked, vicious faith.” Mr Griffin is also alleged to have said that Asian Muslims were turning Britain into a multiracial “hell” as they tried to conquer the country. Mr Jameson said that Mr Griffin had urged the gathering to vote BNP to ensure that “the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country.”

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Muslim beating in New York

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Five Orthodox Jewish teens have been slammed with hate-crime charges in the brutal beating of a Pakistani immigrant in Brooklyn. “They hit me in the face with brass knuckles four or five times while somebody held my hands,” said the victim, Shahid Amber, 24, a gas station attendant. “Then they all beat and kicked me. They were screaming ‘Muslim m-f-r. You m-f-g Muslim terrorists. Go back to your country’.”

New York Daily News, 3 November 2006

Paris airport faces strike threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unions at France’s main airport, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, have threatened to call a strike over alleged bias against Muslim workers.

Seventy-two workers, mostly Muslims, have lost security clearance at the airport since May 2005. Officials say the workers posed a risk because of alleged links to groups with “potentially terrorist aims”.

Unions will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the strike, which could be called for the end of the month. Didier Frassin, head of the main CGT union at the airport, told AFP news agency there would also be a march outside the prefecture in Roissy, which took the decision to remove the security clearance from the workers.

BBC News, 3 November 2006

‘Muslim degree course is set to cause controversy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under that heading this week’s Tribune reports that the University of Chester is to offer a degree in Muslim youth work, which has been developed in collaboration with Muslim agencies.

Ron Geaves, head of theology and religious studies at the university, is quoted as saying: “It seems to me that if ever a community was crying out for more skilled youth workers, it is the Muslim community. There are a huge number of Muslims who work already in the voluntary sector but are not qualified, which limits their career choices.”

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, is not impressed. “I get a bit fed up with the idea that we have to have specific things geared to the Muslim community”, she tells Tribune. “Why can’t we have a youth worker working with all youngsters generally?”

Yakoub Islam adds:

In relation to this story, it is worth mentioning that Professor Ron Geaves is an ethnologist who has been working with British Muslim communities for over two decades. His research has seen him spend prolonged periods living within Muslim communities in England, particularly working class Barelwi Muslims who voices are seriously under-represented in every area of British society.

Ann Cryer’s comments are therefore all the more offensive for their willful ignorance, in the face of one of the most authorative academic voices on Muslims in Britain, whose knowledge of the impact of decades of discrimination against Muslims comes first hand. British Muslim communities are dogged by high rates of youth unemployment due to Islamophobia. Many young Muslims feel marginalised by British society. This is reflected in the rates of drug abuse and criminality, such that today Muslims make up 1 in 10 of the prison population in England.

Professor Geaves’ comments reflect his understanding of a desperate need; Anne Cryer’s reflect the bigotry of a desperate and despicable politician.

Camilla hides poppy behind ‘Muslim scarf’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Camilla Hides Poppy“Camilla meanwhile has being coming under fire from the Daily Express for one for not wearing a poppy. Yesterday they declared ‘Islamic Camilla dumps poppy’, because it was chaffing her ‘Muslim scarf’.

“Today, they are moaning that ‘she is wearing one but you can’t see it under Muslim scarf’. As you can see from the picture, she is wearing the traditional Pakistani daputta. This is a Muslim scarf how? The Express would do well to remember before stoking this Islamophobic and racist nonsense that tens of thousands of soldiers from the sub-continent laid down their lives in WWI for their British colonial masters, and if they’re sincere about commemorating the war veterans, then let’s focus on that.”

Osama Saeed at Rolled Up Trousers, 2 November 2006

Former PM blasts Australian government for marginalising Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, is at odds with the Federal Government over tensions over Islam in Australia. The Government has branded the former Liberal leader an apologist for radical Islam, after Mr Fraser accused his party of marginalising Muslims for political purposes. Earlier this week, Mr Fraser said the Government was gearing up for what he called a Muslim election next year.

ABC Online, 2 November 2006