Protest attack on Islamic colleges in The Times

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP council electionsJohn Harris reports on the BNP’s local election campaign in Stoke-on-Trent. The fascists are focusing on plans to build a new mosque in Hanley. Their leaflet features a silhouetted minaret next to a row of terraced houses and the headline, “Is this what you want for Stoke?”

Harris talks to a BNP candidate named Neil Albert Walker, who tells him: “The white people living right by the mosque will have to move away. They’d feel intimidated. There’s already several mosques in the city, and if you were near a mosque on a Friday afternoon, you’d realise what we mean. It’s just absolutely awash with Muslims, and they’re aggressive towards people who… aren’t Muslims, basically.”

Walker says the problem is that “the Muslims will not live peacefully alongside any other religion” because “their religion tells them they must master everyone else”. The BNP seems to believe the UK would be better off without any Muslims at all, Harris suggests. “In my opinion,” Walker replies, “it would.”

Guardian, 22 April 2006

Muslim students are not being influenced by extremists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A Guardian Education article sought to attribute the increased participation of Muslim students within the National Union of Students to a rising trend of ‘extremism’ (Adding their voice to the debate, April 4). In the post-7/7 age, it is unfortunate that such accusations are levied at the Muslim community all too easily.

“The allegations stem from the Federation of Student Islamic Societies’ (Fosis) support for the removal of Hizb ut-Tahrir from the NUS’s No-Platform for Racists policy. When the decision to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir was taken in 2004, Muslim students were under-represented in the NUS and there was a lack of proper debate. Many unsubstantiated accusations have been levied against Hizb ut-Tahrir in the past, but in reality the organisation works to advance the Muslim world by engaging in political work. It uses non-violent means and is opposed to terrorism, having condemned the terrorist activities of 9/11 and 7/7. Many Muslims may have disagreements with the organisation, but they unanimously assert that this does not render it extremist; and they defend its right to free speech.”

Wakkas Khan of FOSIS writes in the Guardian, 21 April 2006

No doubt Muslim students’ right to free speech will be high up the agenda when the “March for Free Expression” holds its policy meeting tomorrow in London. Another contribution to this question that the MFE might like to consider is the paper presented last month to the All Party Parliamentary University Group by Abdurrahman Jafar of the MCB (see here and here). Such issues as the disciplining of Nasser Amin for expressing his views on the Palestine-Israel conflict in a SOAS student magazine will of course be of particular concern to these doughty defenders of free speech.

More self-justifying nonsense from Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2In an article in the current issue of Tribune, headed “Free speech is under attack – even from the Left”, Peter Tatchell accuses National Assembly Against Racism chair Lee Jasper of smearing him in a letter to the magazine.

Defending his decision to speak at the “March for Free Expression” rally in Trafalgar Square on 25 March, Tatchell claims, yet again, that “there was no visible BNP presence at the rally. No Union Jack flags. No leaflets or placards attacking Muslims or promoting fascist ideas”.

Reading Tatchell’s denials, you’re reminded of the Vatican scholar in Brecht’s play who, invited by Galileo to observe the movement of the planets through his telescope, shakes his head obstinately and refuses to look. And Tatchell pretends to be a defender of Enlightenment values!

See here for pictures of fascists with Union Jack flags at the Trafalgar Square rally. The literature they are holding is the pamphlet produced by the BNP’s front organisation, Civil Liberty, which was openly distributed to the demonstrators by BNP activists without any interference by the stewards.

Placards featuring reproductions of two of the most blatantly racist of the Danish cartoons – one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of the Prophet threateningly wielding a large knife with two terrified-looking veiled women cowering behind him – were enthusiastically displayed by the protestors. The latter cartoon was accompanied by the slogan “Religion – hands off women’s life”, implying that the oppression of women is intrinsic to Islam, which of course is precisely the message the caricature sought to convey.

The placards had been brought to the demonstration not by fascists but by Tatchell’s allies in the Worker Communist Party of Iran, whose platform speaker Maryam Namazie provocatively brandished these racist caricatures and urged the crowd to pass them around and do likewise. They were only too happy to oblige.

TV skewing Americans’ view of peaceful Islam, Muslim leaders say

Posted on by Bob Pitt

American Muslim leaders say they are facing an increasingly tough public relations battle as they fight to portray their faith as non-violent. Some Muslims say conveying a peaceful image of Islam is tougher now than it was after the Sept. 11 attacks, and they blame a daily barrage of negative media images.

Imam Hassan Qazwini heads the largest mosque in the USA, the Islamic Center of America, based in Dearborn, Mich. Qazwini said he and other imams have grown weary of being made to answer for every violent act committed in the name of Mohammed. “This has become a daily nightmare for Muslims,” Qazwini said. “We’re upset. We’re frustrated. We cannot control every Muslim. We cannot be held responsible for everything.”

Qazwini said he is confounded when Islam as a whole is blamed for the actions of individuals, while other religions are not. “How is it that when Pat Robertson calls for the murder of the president of a sovereign country that nobody said Christianity is promoting violence and murder?” Qazwini said, referring to Robertson’s call last August for the assassination Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

USA Today, 17 April 2006

Burning of sanctuary stokes fears of Islamophobia in Spain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An arson attack over the Easter weekend on a Muslim sanctuary in the Spanish city of Ceuta marked another step in what some experts fear is a growing incidence of Islamophobia in the country. Ceuta lies on a small peninsula in North Africa and a third of the population is Muslim. The burning of the Sidi Bel Abbas sanctuary comes just three months after another sanctuary in the enclave was attacked by arsonists.

El País newspaper yesterday listed a number of mosques and other Muslim targets that have been ransacked, burned or had copies of the Qur’an set alight by intruders. At least four towns in the eastern region of Catalonia have seen attacks on mosques and Muslim butchers, some with Molotov cocktails. In the eastern town of Reus, police detained two car-loads of skinheads armed with Molotov cocktails as they headed towards the local mosque.

The train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid two years ago and growing Islamophobia since the September 11 attacks were largely to blame. “We never had things like this happen before,” Imad Alnaddar, who is in charge of the main mosque in Valencia, told El País.

Guardian, 18 April 2006

Fascists’ election lies exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

fascist and flagFascists’ election lies exposed

By Nick West

Tribune, 14 April 2006

The attempted flooding of the London Underground by Islamist terrorists is just one of many lies being peddled by fascist British National Party candidates at the forthcoming local elections. Claiming to have a confidential Metropolitan Police source who revealed the plot to bomb the London tube, the BNP says the threat from Islamic terrorists is far worse than imagined, as its members step up their attempt to demonise the Islamic community.

The party’s publications are decribing the local elections as a “Referendum on Islam” and claiming the government’s “slack” asylum and immigration policies and the war in Iraq are responsible for Islamic terrosrism. A BNP leaflet, distributed only days after the bombings last July, said: “If only they had listened to the BNP”.

This approach has led certain sections of the BNP to hand out copies of the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed, leading to one BNP canvasser being hospitalised. An even more controversial approach has been taken in Leeds, where the latest edition of the BNP’s Morley Patriot called for the banning of the burka and the removal of Muslims from any job that involves chemicals or electronics. Other tactics have seen BNP canvassers presenting themselves as “old Labour”. A recent BNP leaflet in Sandwell in the West Midlands proudly announced this was “the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for”.

Target areas for the BNP, which is standing a record 357 candidates, are where it has contested previous by-elections, thrown regional or national resources at a campaign and collected voter data. Target councils are Thurrock, Barking and Dagenham, Epping, Bexley, Stoke-on-Trent, Dudley, Oldham, Manchester, Burnley, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale and Amber Valley.

Opus Dei paper prints prophet in hell cartoon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A cartoon depicting Muhammed in hell has been published by an Italian magazine close to Opus Dei, bringing angry criticism from Muslim groups and disapproval from the Vatican.

The drawing in Studi cattolici takes its inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which the 14th-century poet imagines being guided through hell by the Latin poet Virgil, and sees the prophet cut in two as his punishment for spreading division. In the cartoon, Virgil points out another figure to Dante, saying: “And that one there with his pants down, that’s Italian policy towards Islam.”

The caption uses a play on words to suggest Italy has chickened out in its attitude to Muslims.

Guardian, 17 April 2006

See also Daily Telegraph, 17 April 2006

Islamaphobia on the rise in schools, teachers warn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Teachers’ leaders have warned of a rising tide of Islamaphobia in schools in the wake of last year’s bomb attacks on London.

Delegates at the National Union of Teachers’ conference in Torquay said that many Muslims felt under increasing pressure from racial intolerance. They also warned that groups such as the British National Party and the National Front had been exploiting the tensions and spreading a message of racial hatred. “We note that such fascist and racist organisations have announced their intention to stand in seats across the country in order to profit from such an atmosphere,” the union said.

Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the NUT, said the union had had increased incidents of name-calling against Muslim students reported to it. “There have been other instances of a more extreme nature where people have been attacked or spat at because they may appear to be Muslim,” he added. The union has issued guidelines to all members insisting they should tackle racial incidents in schools and make it clear that there is no excuse for racist behaviour.

Independent, 17 April 2006

See also Islam Online, 17 April 2006