Police ready for mosque protest in Sunderland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sunderland Unites Against Racism counter-protest (1)Police have promised residents that it will be ‘business as usual’ tomorrow despite plans for a demo by far-right protestors.

Extremist groups are planning a demonstration at the site of a new mosque in St Marks Road in Millfield, with around 100 people expected to attend. It is the latest in a series of protests against the new religious centre, and anti-facist groups are again planning a counter-protest.

A spokesman for Sunderland Unites Against Racism said: “We simply cannot allow fascists to divide the people of Sunderland and bring violence and hatred into the area.”

Continue reading →

Allegations of Islamist take over of schools are false and harming children, says governor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muhammad KhanStories about an alleged Islamist takeover of Birmingham schools are creating an atmosphere of mistrust that will harm children and prevent Muslims from becoming teachers, according to a school governor at the centre of the row.

Muhammad Khan (pictured) said that there was no substance to the widely-reported allegations that extremists have taken control at Saltley School, where he has been a governor for more than a decade. But he describes the current media frenzy and “innuendo” as “scary” and believes it will be already having an impact on students.

“There is a de-humanisation going on,” Dr Khan a tutor at Ruskin College, Oxford said. “Forget us [the governors], and forget the teachers – we are all adults. But as a child if you are constantly getting this on the TV and newspaper that this is the sort of school you are going to, then what is happening to you in terms of how you see your school, how you see your community and how you see yourself? Many of these children are Muslim and British and this is the kind of stuff you are hearing about your religion in the country that’s your home.”

The allegations emerged earlier this month in “leaked” documents, purportedly revealing correspondence between Islamic fundamentalists. They discuss a supposedly successful plan – dubbed ‘Operation Trojan Horse’ – to win control of Birmingham schools, including Saltley. Factual inaccuracies quickly led to widespread doubts about the authenticity of the documents. Some suspect they were produced by provocateurs trying to stir up ill feeling towards Muslims.

Continue reading →

Woman’s suicide sparks hate fest on official EDL Facebook page

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the tragic case of Sobia Yousef, who stabbed herself to death in a Shipley supermarket, apparently in a state of depression following the loss of her daughter to a terminal illness. A link to the report was posted on the English Defence League’s Facebook page, where it provoked a series of disgusting comments along the lines of “Got no sympathy for immigrants or muslims. They bring it on themselves” and “at least there’s 1 less to breed”. EDL News has the details.

Clarion Fund’s new Islamophobic film, ‘Honor Diaries’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Honor Diaries (2)“The Clarion Fund (now the ‘Clarion Project–#1 news site on the threat of Islamic extremism’) rides again. After producing three classic Islamophobic films, Obsession, Third Jihad and Iranium, T-H-E-Y’R-E B-A-C-K with a new one, Honor Diaries. The new project focuses on honor killings and Islam’s supposed hatred of women. One has to ask why a film about the purported abuse of Muslim women was produced by Jews, and ones with a distinct ideological agenda at that.”

Richard Silverstein reviews the Clarion Fund’s latest exercise in Islam-bashing.

Tikun Olam, 27 March 2014

Newsnight’s ‘Muslim discussion’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Newsnight Muslim representationOn Monday evening BBC Newsnight broadcast a piece about the representation of British Muslims.

Bizarrely, the segment featured a 6-minute film by Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz, probably the least representative Muslim in the UK. Among the individuals Nawaz interviewed was the Iranian “ex-Muslim” Maryam Namazie, who is a leading figure in a crazed far-left sect called the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and even less representative of anyone than Nawaz himself is.

In the studio discussion that followed the film Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar took on Nawaz, although Nawaz’s disinclination to allow his critics to speak without trying to talk over them meant that the debate produced more heat than light.

The discussion was originally intended to include Myriam Francois-Cerrah, but for some reason the Newsnight producers decided against this. Over at the Huffington Post, she has outlined the criticisms she would have made of Maajid Nawaz, had she been present.

Piggin ‘idolised’ Israeli terrorist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Piggin No More Mosques graffitiThe Daily Mail has an update on the Michael Piggin trial.

We already knew that Piggin “glorified” former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”), but it turns out he had another source of inspiration.

The Mail reports that the jury was shown “online chats with his friends in which he idolised religious extremist Baruch Goldstein, who went on a killing spree in a mosque”.

The reference is to the Hebron massacre in 1994, when the Kahanist terrorist Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahim Mosque, killing 29 and wounding another 125.

Soldier charged with terror offences after nail bomb found at house in Eccles

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ryan McGee EDLA soldier has been charged with terror offences after a nail bomb was found at a house in Eccles. Ryan McGee, 19, of Mellor Street, Eccles, has been charged with making explosives and possession of a document for terrorist purposes.

He was arrested in December after Greater Manchester Police raided his end-terrace house as part of a separate investigation and discovered the explosives. Alongside the homemade device officers also found a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook – a book published in 1971 containing instructions on the manufacture of explosives.

Mr McGee was serving with the armed forces with 5th Batallion the Rifles in Paderborn, Germany, at the time of the discovery. He was taken into military custody days later and flown back to the UK to be questioned by police. Mr McGee is now due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday, April 2.

After the discovery of the bomb, a cordon was put in place by police and 30 residents were evacuated to nearby Lewis Street Primary School. Army bomb disposal officers were called in to remove the bomb.

Continue reading →

TN Tea Partiers freak out on TV reporter for covering their effort to block Muslim cemetery

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tempers flared in a confrontation between anti-Islamic activists and proponents of a plan to build an Islamic cemetery adjacent to a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN.

WSMV Channel 4 reported that supporters of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro asked the judge presiding over the hearing to recuse himself from today’s hearing about an injunction to stop the ICM’s expansion. The motion was granted, infuriating opponents to the cemetery plan.

Supporters of the Islamic Center said that Judge William Corlew lll ruled against them in the initial fight over whether to allow the mosque to be built at all in 2010. Federal judges overruled Corlew and construction proceeded. The Islamic Center and its attorney John Green didn’t believe it could get an impartial ruling from Corlew in the matter and he recused himself from the hearing.

“We’ll go to another judge because the Islamic center didn’t think Judge Corlew could give them a fair trial. I think it was sad today for all the people took off work to be here,” said Lou Ann Zelenik, a local Tea Party official and longtime opponent of the Islamic Center.

Green said that the “degree of hyperbole and misinformation” in the case has reached a point of true “absurdity.”

In the hallway outside the meeting room, mosque opponents turned nasty, jostling and shoving, then insulting a mosque supporter and ordering him not to film them. One elder gentleman accompanying Zelenik said that Islam is “not a religion” and told ICM supporters, “You’re the ones that’s lying.”

Continue reading →

EDL Girls and Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL GirlsLast week BBC3 broadcast a documentary entitled “EDL Girls: Don’t Call Me Racist”, which followed a number of English Defence League “Angels” as they went about their lives whipping up hatred against the Muslim community. The subjects were treated sympathetically, and the violence and viciousness of the EDL were left unexamined, although it proved impossible to disguise their ignorance and bigotry. Over at the Tell Mama website, Aniqah Choudhary has a good article exposing the failings of the film.

‘My hell as a white Muslim living in Bristol’: Woman says she is racially abused every day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bristol Post My Hell front pageAssaults, insults, sly remarks and threats. All have been hurled at Kelly Ziane since she converted to Islam at the tender age of 18. She was not coerced, nor did she change her religion in order to marry – she did so because she believed it was the “right” faith for her.

For a white girl from Bedminster it was a bold and radical change to make, something she has been reminded of on numerous occasions since then. But the 36-year-old mum-of-three has not wavered from Islam – she says her skin has grown thicker and her resolve stronger, even when she felt forced to take her children out of their primary school because she was racially abused by another parent.

Kelly contacted the Bristol Post after we reported on a racially motivated assault in a Bedminster shop last week.

She said: “I saw the news the other night, about the Muslim women attacked at Poundstretcher in East Street, and there was a police officer saying racist incidents are very rare in Bristol. In my experience, that’s not the case at all.

“I converted to Islam 19 years ago. I grew up in Bedminster and over the last ten years it’s got a lot worse. I don’t have enough fingers to count on my hands the number of incidents. It gets to the stage where you don’t see the point in reporting everything that happens to you. I know I should, and I would urge everyone to report hate crimes, no matter how small.

“The insults used to bother me, but over the years you get used to blocking it out and carrying on with your life. If you let it get to you, you would end up feeling so hateful towards everyone. You have to have strength, otherwise you might end up thinking I can’t do this, it’s not for me.”

Kelly said the abuse has varied over the years, from being spat at by a man who tried to pull off her headdress (hijab) on her way home from work, to being called a “Paki” and a “raghead” by women in shops, to the ignorance of being asked whether she speaks English in everyday situations.

Continue reading →