Osama Saeed on the continuing campaign against Interpal.
Watching Jihad Watch
Yusuf Smith draws our attention to a new blog, Watching Jihad Watch, whose author recently tangled with Robert Spencer over the latter’s statement, as reported by Sara Rosenbaum in her St Petersburg Times article about anti-Muslim hate-sites, that he bans racist comments from Jihad Watch. WJW offers some examples of the repulsive bigotry that has appeared on Jihad Watch, and quotes the following passage from an article written by Jihad Watch president Hugh Fitzgerald:
“… not only should migration be stopped, but life can be made more difficult, if not by the government, then by private individuals, so that Moslems will be discouraged from remaining. What do I mean? I mean that we, as private citizens, do not have to hire Moslems, we do not have to buy their goods, or make their lives, economically, more rewarding. It may seem mean, and many of you may be offended by it, and I am perfectly aware that there are nice Moslems, that there are those who simply ignore the main tenets of Islam. But as a group, the Moslems are a threat to me and those I love. Even the innocent ones, merely by being here, swell Moslem political power.”
Gay Muslims object to negative Channel 4 portrayal
“Imaan, the support group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Muslims are featured in the Channel 4 documentary Gay Muslims, produced by Love Productions, which is being broadcast on Monday, 23rd January at 8.00pm.
“Imaan wish to make it clear that its participation in the documentary was NOT made in partnership or consultation with the group – the largest and longest established LGBT Muslim group in the UK and Europe. Indeed Imaan tried very hard to obtain editorial input but Love Productions refused. Instead they appeared more interested, from the outset, in casting gay Muslims in a negative and inaccurate light.
“Contrary to the angle of the documentary most of the LGBT Muslim community do not lead ‘tortuous, secret lives’ but are happy balanced individuals who are supported by a growing LGBT Muslim community and increasingly by the wider gay AND Muslim communities in this country and abroad.”
Imaan press release, 21 January 2006
And have Peter Tatchell and Outrage rallied to support Imaan on this issue? No, of course not – they’re more interested in staging stupid provocations like this.
More Islamophobic crap from Tribune
Tribune joins the witch-hunt against Adam Yosef. Deputy editor Barckley Sumner mainly restricts himself to parroting Outrage’s stupid press release portraying Adam Yosef as a violent racist homophobe. But Sumner goes further, suggesting that Adam Yosef’s NUJ card should be withdrawn. Yosef’s article on Birmingham Pride is of course entirely ignored, as it wouldn’t fit in with Sumner’s own bigotry. Unfortunately this is par for the course with Tribune. We have already drawn attention to the magazine’s recent disgraceful attack on the Muslim Association of Britain. Sumner and his friends appear intent on destroying any remaining credibility the Labour Party has among British Muslims.
Fascist predicted London bombings claim
Media coverage of the trial of fascist supremo Nick Griffin is not exactly helpful. The Times reports yesterday’s court proceedings under the headline “BNP chief predicted an Islamist attack on British city, court told”, the Telegraph article is headlined “BNP leader predicted attack a year before London bombs”, BBC News has “BNP boss ‘predicted bomb attacks'” and Channel 4 “BNP leader ‘predicted’ July bombings”.
Of course, it is true that the defence did make these claims at Leeds Crown Court. But in the aftermath of the Blair government’s participation in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq there was hardly anyone who didn’t predict that the UK would be subjected to reciprocal terrorist attacks. The effect of these headlines is to give the impression that the fascist leader possessed some unique insight into the situation.
The Nazis themselves are well pleased with the media coverage: “When Nick told a packed private meeting at Morley Town Hall that ‘sooner or later there’s going to be Islamic terrorists letting off bombs in major cities’ the number of people in that hall numbered about 120. Now tens of millions of newspaper readers, web viewers and radio listeners in the UK and beyond have heard this prophetic statement….”
BNP leader ‘claimed Qur’an allows rape of non-Muslims’
Secretly filmed tirades against Muslims and Asians by the leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin, were described to a jury yesterday, including claims that rape and paedophilia against non-believers were countenanced by the Qur’an.
At private party meetings, the Cambridge graduate who has immersed himself in far-right politics for nearly 30 years described parts of Britain as “multiracial hellholes” targeted by a supposed Asian Muslim plan for global conquest.
Films of his speeches in small West Yorkshire towns two years ago were broadcast by a BBC TV undercover team last summer, leading to police action against half-a-dozen BNP activists. Mr Griffin, 45, and former Leeds council candidate Mark Collett, 24, deny 12 charges of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.
Opening a two-week trial at Leeds crown court, Rodney Jameson QC, prosecuting, said Mr Griffin had focused on paedophile drug rape in a recruiting speech in Keighley in January 2004. The town had just seen a gang of British Asian youths jailed for violence, drug dealing and sexual assault on under-age girls.
Unaware that one of his new recruits at the Reservoir Tavern was undercover BBC reporter Jason Gwynne, the court heard that Mr Griffin told his audience: “These attacks are going to continue, because that is what the Qur’an says. The bastards that are in that gang, they are in prison so the public think it’s all over. Well it’s not. Because there’s more of them.
“Their ‘good book’ tells them that that’s acceptable. If you doubt it, go and buy a copy and you will find verse after verse saying you can take any woman you want as long as they’re not Muslim. These 18, 19 and 25-year-old Asian Muslims are seducing and raping white girls in this town right now.”
The witch-hunt against Adam Yosef
What with Outrage, the Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association and (even further to the right) Flame Out all dedicated to attacking Muslims’ attitudes to LGBT rights, you might think that the market for gay Islamophobia was already a bit crowded. But the new year has brought us yet another organisation, the previously unheard-of Gay Action Media Watch.
GAMW launched itself on 5 January with a campaign against Adam Yosef, who writes for the Asian entertainment magazine Desi Xpress. In a statement posted on Indymedia and headed “Muslim journalist attacks Gays – please complain!“, GAMW objected to an article Yosef had written for Desi Xpress containing the following passage: “Hmmm… gay weddings… Gay people and commitment? I don’t think so… They’ll be shagg*ng the neighbours before they even cut the cake. Bad idea I’m afraid. Great way of evading tax though…” GAMW called for letters of protest to be sent to local papers in Birmingham where Desi Xpress is based, and for formal complaints to be made to the Press Complaints Commission.
On the face of it (allowing for the fact that we are dependent on an edited extract from Yosef’s article) this does look like a clear example of anti-gay stereotyping. However, it falls well short of “bigotry and hate against gay people eminating from the words of young Muslims”, which was how GAMW characterised Yosef’s remarks. Furthermore, as a contributor to Indymedia immediately pointed out, GAMW’s portrayal of Adam Yosef as a hate-filled homophobic bigot was rather undermined by the fact that he had posted an article on Indymedia in June 2005, headed “Pride – The Real Rainbow“, that offered a glowing review of Birmingham Pride. In the article, Yosef had written:
“I saw a lot of ordinary-looking people – that is, without elaborate costumes, gay and straight, people of all races and all ages – just relaxing, enjoying the weekend and having fun. I saw adults, children, families, couples and pets. I saw black and white and young and old alike. I saw a trustee of a major city mosque cheer with glee as the procession of dancers and drag queens paraded into the heart of Hurst Street. I saw Sikh men with beards and turbans browsing through the stalls and loving the atmosphere, I saw Muslim girls with hijabs shouting ‘Gay, Muslim and Proud’ as part of Asian lesbian project SAFRA, there were black and Asian youngsters, people of all backgrounds and origins, OAPs, students – heck, I even saw Darth Vader! … In all my experience of attending cultural or diverse festivals, Pride is the only event where I have really seen such a diverse range of people from so many social and ethnic backgrounds. To have streets crammed with so many different people all enjoying themselves and accepting each other is, to me, what Pride represents.”
As one commentator on the GAMW post observed: “If it wasn’t for the pride article, maybe I would say Adam Yosef is a little homophobic but it’s hard to once you read the article.” Others were equally critical of GAMW’s attack on Yosef. One commentator asked: “Of all the journo’s and celebrities that have recently said dodgy stuff about gay marriage why have you selected Adam Yosef?” Another agreed: “Yes, why Adam Yosef? Would attacking a non-Muslim NOT have been in keeping with the current political climate? Are you more likely to get press coverage if you attack a Muslim?”
The role of right-wing anti-Muslim bloggers
Sara Rosenbaum writes on the phenomenon of right-wing US bloggers inciting hatred against Muslims, with particular emphasis of Joe Kaufman’s Americans Against Hate site (which in the interests of accuracy should be required to change its name to “Americans For Hate”):
“Kaufman’s site is only one of a constellation of blogs with names like JihadWatch.com, MilitantIslamMonitor.org, and WesternResistance.com that are dedicated to the surveillance of American Muslims. The blogs link to one another, with more-traveled sites amplifying stories from more obscure ones, like Kaufman’s. He claims he has not found a single mosque in Florida that is not linked to terrorists.
“A lot of people are listening. Last month, after Kaufman called a Tampa Muslim religious retreat a ‘jihad camp for children’ and wrote that the speakers were ‘linked to al-Qaida’, death threats poured in to the Presbyterian camp hosting the event. Muslims say the blogs breed hate. ‘He’s spreading lies, slandering individuals’, said Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for the Tampa Bay chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ‘These are vigilantes’.”
St Petersburg Times, 16 January 2006
For Kaufman’s reply (condemning Rosenbaum as “biased and irresponsible”!) see here.
And for Western Resistance’s equally irony-free complaint that Kaufman et al have been subjected to a “smear campaign”, see here.
Robert Spencer isn’t happy either. He rejects Rosenbaum’s claim that he admitted to her that Jihad Watch attracts contributions from racists (see for example these comments on the London bombings) on the grounds that he has “pointed out ad infinitum that Islam is not a race” – and he says he never reads the comments anyway.
Osama Saeed argues that the lesson to be drawn from Rosenbaum’s article is that Muslims need to “get blogging” and counter the influence of the hate-sites.
BNP boss faces race hate charges
British National Party leader Nick Griffin made a speech claiming white society had turned into a multi-racial hell-hole, Leeds Crown Court has heard. Mr Griffin is accused of using abusive, threatening, or insulting words towards people of Asian ethnicity, in speeches filmed in West Yorkshire in 2004. Party activist Mark Collett is charged with similar offences. Both men deny the charges. The speeches were filmed in 2004 for the BBC documentary, The Secret Agent.
The court heard how Mr Griffin addressed a crowd at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley on 19 January 2004 and told them that white society had turned into a multi-racial hell-hole as Asian Muslims aimed to conquer the country. Rodney James QC, prosecuting, told the jury Mr Griffin had concentrated on allegations of paedophile drug rapes by Asian Muslims in Keighley. Reading excerpts from the speeches, Mr Jameson said Mr Griffin had urged the crowd to vote for the BNP in order to ensure “the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country”.
Another case for Interpal’s lawyers? And George Galloway’s?
Remember how the Board of Deputies was forced to pay out a large sum to Interpal, after falsely accusing the Palestinian charity of funding terrorism? Presumably right-wing journalist Stephen Pollard has forgotten.
Commenting on George Galloway’s participation in the Big Brother reality TV show, Pollard writes: “Interpal, his ‘designated charity’ is described by the US Treasury as a ‘Hamas-related charity’ and has been listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. So a vote for Galloway is, quite literally, a vote for terror.”
Stephen Pollard’s blog, 15 January 2006
Update: A new post (dated 18 January) on Pollard’s blog reads: “You might notice that a posting from yesterday on Interpal is no longer up. I removed it after a few minutes (although I understand that it remained visible for a little while afterwards). It concerned its nomination by George Galloway in the Big Brother programme. I want to make clear that the charity operates as an entirely legitimate organisation for the relief of suffering and no evidence has ever been produced to suggest otherwise.”
This defence is, to put it mildly, full of holes. Pollard posted his comment on “Big Brother’s terror drive” on 15 January, and we didn’t post on it here till 17 January, so the libellous attack on Interpal and Galloway had been online for two days by then. The original post contained the phrase “a vote for Galloway is, quite literally, a vote for terror”. Pollard’s initial response was not to remove the post but to amend it so it read “a vote for Galloway is, quite literally, a vote for an organisation described by the US government as terrorist”, and the title was changed to “Big Brother’s warped fundraising” (see here). This version still hasn’t been removed from Pollard’s site.