Clarke criticises Danish ‘mistake’ over cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British government has accused its Danish counterparts of making “a serious mistake” in the way it handled relations with Muslim countries after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, criticised the decision by the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to snub a request from 11 Muslim countries for a meeting after the cartoons were published in the Jyllands Posten newspaper in September. Mr Clarke told a public meeting in Willesden that Mr Rasmussen had not even responded to the request.

Guardian, 8 March 2006

And why hasn’t this appeared on Dhimmi Watch? Is Robert Spencer prepared to sit idly by while British politicians sell out western civilisation to the Muslim hordes?

Postscript:  This was quite unfair on Robert. Shortly after our comment was posted, he laid into Clarke: “Britain’s Home Secretary criticizes Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for not throwing freedom of speech overboard and rushing into dhimmitude.”

Dhimmi Watch, 9 March 2006

Why the Lib Dems?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A few days ago Liberal Democrat spokesperson Kishwer Falkner attracted some media attention when she stated that Muslims should have “broader shoulders” when it comes to issues of free speech such as the Danish cartoons – a statement that Osama Saeed rightly dismissed as “patronising drivel”.

I missed Kishwer Falkner’s speech at the Trafalgar Square rally against Islamophobia on 11 February (I’d sneaked off for a coffee). However, a contact has provided this account: “She came on directly after Azzam Tamimi and attacked him from the platform for his lack of ‘self restraint’ (without of course specifying what this meant). She ended her tedious and patronising speech with the inspiring slogan ‘Moderation is more important than militancy’ – and walked off to a chorus of boos.”

I notice that another leading Lib Dem, Evan Harris MP, is billed as a platform speaker at the so-called “March for Free Expression” in London on 25 March, which has been called basically in support of the right to incite hatred against Muslims.

I can understand why Muslim communities have been alienated from Labour by the actions of the Blair government, but why anyone should regard the Lib Dems as any sort of alternative beats me.

Muslim woman denied job for scarf sues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman who claims she was denied employment after she refused to remove a head scarf worn for religious reasons is accusing a Des Moines convenience store chain of violating her religious rights. In the lawsuit, Aaliyah Withers-Johnson claims officials at Git-N-Go Convenience Stores Inc. told her she could not work for the company if she insisted on wearing the head scarf, known as a hijab, worn as part of her Islamic faith. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Des Moines, accuses the company of racial and religious discrimination.

Withers-Johnson, who also is black, claims she wore the scarf to her initial job interview for a position as a store clerk on March 11, 2005, was offered a position and told to report six days later for training. But at the training session, Withers-Johnson claims she was immediately pulled aside by a company official and told she would not be able to start ‘”because of the thing you are wearing on your head,’” the lawsuit said.

Des Moines Register, 6 March 2006

‘Left’ Islamophobes fall out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Even the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty baulks at some of the alliances formed by their friends in the Worker Communist Party of Iran.

In an open letter to Maryam Namazie, Martin Thomas of the AWL writes: “The organisers of the ‘March For Free Expression’ (against political Islam) planned for 25 March are advertising you as a prominent supporter – alongside the Freedom Association, an extreme right-wing movement best known for its strike-breaking efforts during the Grunwick strike of 1977.”

Martin also takes issue with Namazie’s decision to sign the anti-Islamism manifesto first published in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten: “The manifesto’s twelve initial signatories include several right-wing figures – not, to be sure, as right-wing as the Freedom Association, but clearly alien to the labour movement.”

AWL website, 5 March 2006

For details of the “march for free expression”, see here.

For our comments on the anti-Islamism manifesto, see here.

‘What are we to do about Islam?’ A right-wing bigot explains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Social Affairs Unit has reproduced the speech given by Douglas Murray, author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam in the Netherlands last month. It includes gems such as the following:

Why is it that time and again the liberal West is crumpling before the violence, intimidation and thuggery of Islam? … It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. There is not an inch of ground to give on this one.

Social Affairs Unit, 3 March 2006

Mad Mel is impressed: “You have to look hard to find such moral clarity within today’s British Conservative party – or indeed most of the British establishment.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 6 March 2006

Telegraph apologises to Bewleys

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Noble Qur'anRemember the outrageous interview with Patrick Sookhdeo in the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks ago, in which he launched an attack on The Noble Qur’an: A New Rendering of its Meaning into English – a highly-regarded translation by Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley? (See here and here.) Well, yesterday’s Telegraph published an apology, acknowledging that “Dr Sookhdeo’s remarks did not refer to The Noble Qur’an, A Rendering of its Meaning in English, but to a completely different translation”, together with a letter from Abdalhaqq Bewley taking the paper to task over its treatment of Islam and Muslims.

Sunday Telegraph, 5 March 2006

The Telegraph also publishes two other letters that it says have “been received since a website wrongly accused Dr Sookhdeo and the Sunday Telegraph of calling for a ban on the Koran”. Presumably this a reference to Islamophobia Watch. In fact our post made no reference to the Telegraph calling for a ban, but only to Sookhdeo, who was quoted as saying: “The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book. Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both.”

Yusuf Smith comments: “It appears that Sookhdeo was indeed referring to a different translation which had the same English title (the Noble Qur’an, as opposed to Holy Qur’an for example) though not the same sub-title (‘A New Rendering …’). Most likely this was the infamous, ear-jarring, propaganda-laden Khan-Hilali translation…. The problem is that Sookhdeo clearly referred to the subtitle of the translation, which has very little commentary (unlike Khan & Hilali), which does give the impression that it was the content of the Qur’an which Sookhdeo was suggesting was the issue, not commentary alongside the text. So people were justified in fearing that the Qur’an itself was under attack and not one person’s writings.”

Indigo Jo Blogs, 5 March 2006

Guantánamo detainee told Geneva rights ‘irrelevant’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A senior US military officer at Guantánamo Bay told a detainee that he did not care about international law and that the Geneva conventions did not apply to proceedings at the military prison, according to thousands of Pentagon documents released over the weekend by the US government after a court action by the Associated Press news agency.

The outburst by the air force colonel came during a hearing to determine the status of Feroz Abbasi, a Briton held for more than two years without charge or trial, and who was released last year. The officer was presiding over a tribunal convened to decide whether detainees were enemy combatants, as alleged by the Bush administration. Critics dismissed the hearings, called combatant status review tribunals, as kangaroo courts.

Guardian, 6 March 2006

Islamophobia Watch helps target Tatchell for murder (really!)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OutrageLast week the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund Campaign Report 2005 was published. Among the list of Peter’s marvellous accomplishments over the course of the year, the report includes the following nugget: “The website, Islamophobia Watch, regularly (but falsely) denounces Peter as anti-Muslim. It is feared this could make him a target for Islamic fundamentalists who monitor the website to compile their hit-lists.”

Peter is of course noted for keeping a low profile – indeed, within a Left not short of inflated egos and narcissists, his self-effacing approach to political activism is one of his most appealing qualities – and without the efforts of Islamophobia Watch we doubt that anyone would have the slightest idea who Peter Tatchell is. Furthermore, were it not for our harsh criticisms of Peter’s attitude towards Islam, we are convinced that the majority of Muslims would long ago have recognised him as the friend and sympathiser that he is.

As for the claim that “Islamic fundamentalists” monitor our site to “compile their hit-lists”, some might suspect that this is a baseless slander on Peter’s part aimed at silencing his critics. However, as anyone familiar with Outrage’s campaign against Yusuf al-Qaradawi can confirm, Peter is the last person in the world to make an accusation against anyone without solid evidence to back it up. We look forward to to Peter providing his own list of the fundamentalists who use our site for the purpose of targeting people like himself for murder.

Stop the appeasment of Muslim fanatics, Jerusalem Post writer urges

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“…. experience has proven experience has proven that all governmental attempts to appease radical Islamists have not advanced the well-being and security of Western democracies. Rather, such appeasement policies have served to weaken Western, liberal values and threaten the viability of Western societies.

“In Europe, the official reactions to the Muslim cartoon riots exposed this reality. Rather than telling the Muslims who took to the streets and called for the annihilation of Denmark and the waging of global jihad where they could shove it, Europe’s leaders bowed before these violent, intolerant people while expressing contrition and sorrow over the Islamic sensitivities that had been offended.

“In Britain the media refused to publish the pictures of Muhammad – out of sensitivity for Muslim feelings, of course. The newspaper editor who published the pictures in France was fired. In Norway, the editor who published the pictures was forced to publicly apologize to Norway’s Muslim leaders in a humiliating public ceremony. Franco Frattini, the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security said it would be useful for the press to ‘self-regulate’ in attempting to find answers to question of ‘How are we to reconcile freedom of expression and respect for each individual’s deepest convictions?’

“And so, the European reaction to the Muslim rampages has involved slouching towards the surrender of their freedom of speech. Not only has Europe’s appeasement of radical Islam not protected its liberal values, it has undermined the democratic freedoms that form the foundations of European culture. From a security perspective, the consequence of the silencing of pubic debate on the challenge of radical Islam is that Europeans are now effectively barred from conducting a public discussion about the chief threat to their political traditions and physical survival.”

Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post, 3 March 2006

For a similar analysis, see the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty website, 2 March 2006

Churches condemn far-right party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Staffordshire’s church leaders have condemned the British National Party for distributing leaflets depicting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. A Diocese of Lichfield spokesman said the 5,000 leaflets also criticised plans for a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent. The BNP had offered the local council £100,000 for the land in Hanley which was earmarked for the Mosque, he added. The Bishop of Stafford said people should “stand against the evil trying to divide us”.

Church leaders from several faiths met at the proposed site for the mosque on Wednesday to offer prayers for peace and unity. In a statement they said: “It is wrong and irresponsible that this cartoon has been produced by the BNP with the intention of causing hurt to our Muslim brothers and sisters and to divide a community who are working hard to cement the existing good relations. Right-minded people will see through this blatant and desperate exploitation.”

BBC News, 3 March 2006