Dubai family turned away from Eye

Posted on by Bob Pitt

london eyeLondon Eye bosses have apologised to a family from Dubai who were initially stopped from boarding, apparently after being overheard speaking in Arabic.

Syed Husain, 65, of Manor House, north London, was stopped while showing his sister and brother-in-law the sights. They joined the queue at the London Eye, on the South Bank, and went through the usual security checks. But Mr Husain said: “As soon as the security guard heard my sister speak to her husband in Arabic, the attitude towards us changed. They said: ‘Sorry, you can’t carry a bag with you’.”

Mr Husain’s bag was searched and he was told to bring it to a locker at Waterloo Station, while his sister and her husband were held in a secure area nearby. He returned without the bag and the three queued again but were confronted by the same security guard, who asked if he was carrying knives. “I was surprised, he had already searched me, now he is asking for knives. I said ‘no’, then he pushed his hand inside my pocket, searching for knives. He couldn’t find any knives. He then let us inside the capsule.”

BBC News, 21 August 2006

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‘British Muslim leaders’ and ‘sharia law’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shahid_MalikAfter some thirty Muslim representatives met with Ruth Kelly on 14 August, the media spin on the discussion was that “Muslim leaders” had proposed that holidays should be introduced to mark Muslim festivals and that Muslim communities should be allowed to operate Islamic legal codes for marriage and family life.

This was reported in the Daily Mail  under the headline “Muslims call for special bank holidays“, while the Daily Mirror headlined their report “We must not give in to Muslim blackmail“. The Daily Star informed its readers that “British Muslims have demanded special bank holidays for religious festivals…. They also called for the UK to have Sharia law, which in the Middle East includes penalties such as stonings and amputations”, and the fascists of the British National Party echoed the Mirror with “Labour ministers threatened with Islamic blackmail“.

Ever eager to grasp the opportunity for a spot of self-promotion, Labour MP Shahid Malik contributed an article to yesterday’s Sunday Times, headlined “If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi“, in which he wrote that he had been “asked by the media whether I agreed that what British Muslims needed were Islamic holidays and sharia (Islamic law). I thought I had walked into some parallel universe. Sadly this was not a joke. These issues had apparently formed part of the discussion the day before between Prescott, Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, and a selection of ‘Muslim leaders’. I realised then that it wasn’t me and the media who were living in a parallel universe – although certain ‘Muslim leaders’ might well be…. When Lord Ahmed, the Muslim Labour peer, heard my comments – I said essentially that if Muslims wanted sharia they should go and live somewhere where they have it – he accused me of doing the BNP’s work.”

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Daily Express attacked for ‘disgraceful’ headline

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An article by Gabriel Milland in the 17 August issue of the Daily Express, reporting on a YouGov poll which found that three-quarters of respondents believed that Britain was engaged in a battle against “Islamic terrorists”, carried the misleading headline “Britain says: we’re at war with Islam“.

Asians in Media reproduces a letter of complaint sent to the editor of the Express: “I was disgusted to read your article headlined ‘Britain says: We’re at war with Islam’. This article is a disgrace because the headline does not in anyway correctly portray the contents of the article and has obviously been chosen purely to sell more newspapers.”

Asians in Media, 20 August 2006

Complaints can be sent to the editor at peter.hill@express.co.uk and to Mr Milland at gabriel.milland@express.co.uk.

Johann Hari – correct on Bat Ye’or, wrong about Islamophobia Watch!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

johann hari 2Johann Hari has a go at Melanie Phillips et al in today’s Independent:

“There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye’or, a ‘scholar’ who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called ‘Eurabia’.

“In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of ‘dhimmis’ – second-class citizens forced to ‘walk in the gutter’. This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and ‘occult’ plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci – one of the best-selling writers in Italy – has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye’or, ‘Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats.’

“Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers such as Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye’or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) ‘political correctness’. Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It’s interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?”

Great stuff. And who could disagree? Unfortunately, having made these excellent points, Hari goes on to denounce Islamophobia Watch.

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The meaning of ‘Islamo-fascism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The increasingly common juxtaposition of the words ‘Islam’ and ‘fascism’ in America is a result of the efforts to poison public opinion by the Neo-cons. They cut the White House to fit their own lines. President Bush first used terms with a Neo-con stamp like ‘Islamo-fascist’, ‘Islamic radicalism’ and ‘Islamo-fascism’ in a speech he made on October 6, 2005 at the National Endowment for Democracy. He later used such terms between the lines on different occasions. This subject caught Turkey’s attention the most last week by way of a statement Bush made after the London terror operation. It was reported by many Turkish press organizations that Bush used the term ‘Islamist fascist’. Actually, the U.S. president mentioned a war against ‘Islamic fascists’. The adjective ‘Islamic’ is used in two ways in English. The first means Muslim. The other means something conforming and belonging to the Islamic religion. If the first meaning was intended, it points to certain Muslims encouraging fascism. In the second meaning, fascism is directly linked to Islam. While Neo-cons, most of whom are enemies of both Muslims and Islam, say ‘Islamo-fascism’, let there be no doubt that they intend the latter meaning.”

Ali H. Aslan in Zaman, 21 August 2006

Rights commission warns against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) issued a fresh warning about Islamophobic hysteria today after two men “of Middle-Eastern appearance” were forced off a British-bound flight.

Fearful passengers on board flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester demanded that staff remove them from the plane early on Wednesday. The pair were said to be guilty of “suspicious behaviour” – which amounted to being overheard speaking Arabic, wearing leather jackets on a hot day and checking their watches. Six other passengers refused to board the plane and others flounced off when they heard about it.

The two men were eventually kicked off the flight and questioned by police, before being released without charge.

IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh said that the incident was “exactly the type of thing we’ve been so concerned about.” He said:

“There is ever-increasing Islamophobia being implemented in the war on terror. It is counterproductive, not just because it’s going to alienate people who are perceived to be Muslim, but also because terrorists have shown that they will make themselves look completely different to how people perceive them to look. By profiling people on the basis of ethnicity or religion we are actually endangering our lives.”

A spokesman for Monarch Airlines said: “There were two passengers on the flight who came to the attention of the other people because they were apparently acting suspiciously.”

Morning Star, 21 August 2006

‘Don’t mention the religion…’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“How I wish that Betfair had a bet available on the number of times the anchor of tonight’s BBC 10 O’Clock News mentions the religion of the eleven alleged terrorists charged today. I’d plump for zero.

“UPDATE: It took 9 minutes – which included the anchor’s intro, the main report by the Home Affairs Correspondent and the report by the Security Correspondent – before any mention was made that there was a common link of any sort between those charged. So no mention whatsoever of the fact that they were Muslim.

“Then at 10.10 there was a report specifically about the reaction of ‘the community’ in Waltham Forest. No initial mention of the nature of ‘the community’ to which the reporter, Robert Hall, was referring – ie Muslim – but given that he was standing outside a mosque, and he talked about coming home from work for prayers, I think one could reasonably infer he meant Muslim. And half way into the report he did, indeed, use the ‘M word’.”

Stephen Pollard’s weblog, 21 August 2006

‘British Muslims told: it’s right to fight Israel’ shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Jewish groups were furious last night after a firebrand Islamic academic told an 8,000-strong Muslim rally that martyrdom in Israel was ‘just’.” Daily Express, 21 August 2006

“A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was ‘just’. Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the ‘greatest act of martyrdom’.” Daily Mail, 21 August 2006

The right-wing press reports on Dr Azzam Tamimi’s speech at the ExpoIslamia convention in Manchester.

Yet it is only a couple of weeks since the Times published an article glorifying a young British Jew who went to Israel to fight with the IDF: “despite his Leeds accent, Ben is an Israeli soldier. He is also cradling an Israeli-army issue Colt AR15 semi-automatic rifle stamped ‘Property of US Govt’. Ben, 26, who arrived in Israel last year, is one of thousands of those serving in the Israeli military either as newly arrived citizens or on army programmes for Zionists who want to defend Israel”.

Talk about double standards.

Islamophobic? Not me, says John Ware

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John Ware 2“‘A notorious pro-Israeli Islamophobe’, ‘desperate to discredit Muslims’, ‘a track record for displaying unfairness and twisting the truth’. Panorama’s leading reporter, John Ware, is not quite public enemy number one for many British Muslims – that is an accolade no doubt held by Bush or Blair – but postings such as these on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee website show he comes a close second…. He says he is one of five journalists – the others are Martin Bright, the political editor of the New Statesman, Melanie Phillips of the Daily Mail, the Observer’s Nick Cohen and the Times writer-turned-Tory MP, Michael Gove – who have been labelled by the MCB as ‘being in the vanguard of Islamophobia in this country’. ‘We don’t meet up like witches to discuss it’, jokes Ware. ‘We’ve all come to this view independently that – potentially – politics and Islam is an incendiary mix’.”

Needless to say, Ware indignantly denies that he’s an Islamophobe: “Islamophobic meaning an irrational fear of Muslims? Absolutely not.”

Guardian, 21 August 2006

For our earlier coverage of Mr Ware and Panorama see for example here and here,

For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 22 August 2006