A far-right racist and crazed reactionary demagogue writes …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Britain’s state of denial continues to deepen. We saw it after 9/11, when people said America had brought the atrocity upon itself – mainly through its ‘uncritical’ support for Israel. Then after Britain’s own human bomb attacks last July, the media became gripped by fear not of Islamist terrorism but of Islamophobia, or fear of the fear of Islamist terrorism. Now we are told that the riots in France by Muslim and Arab youths from the banlieues – the city suburbs – have nothing to do with Islam but are the result of poverty, unemployment, racism and discrimination. Those who say, au contraire, that Islam is at the core of the disorder are being vilified as far-right racists and crazed reactionary demagogues.”

Melanie Phillips in the Jewish Chronicle, 18 November 2005

Piggy bank pork pies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hogwash“Remember the political-correctness-gone-mad story about the Halifax and Nat West banning piggy banks so as not to offend Muslims? The Daily Express led with it, as did several internet news sources and a few of the more intemperate blogs. Well, Australian Mediawatch reveals that it wasn’t true.

“The Halifax press office said in an email to Mediawatch: ‘Halifax has not withdrawn any piggy banks from branches. As a matter of fact we have not used piggy banks in our branches for a number of years.’ And the media relations office of the Nat West wrote: ‘There is absolutely no fact in the story. We simply had a UK wide savings marketing campaign, which included pictures of piggy banks, running until the end of September. Piggy banks have been and will continue to be used as a promotional item by NatWest’.”

MediaWatchWatch, 16 November 2005

Credit where it’s due, though. Two weeks ago even that most intemperate of anti-Muslim bloggers, Robert Spencer, admitted that he got it wrong.

The question is why anyone ever swallowed this patently bogus story in the first place.

French Muslim leaders reject blame for riots

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French Muslim leaders denounced on Thursday efforts to blame Muslims and Islam for recent riots in the country’s rundown suburbs and said they saw worrying signs of growing prejudice against their faith here.

Many young rioters may have been from Muslim backgrounds, but their violent outburst was a protest against unemployment, poor housing and other bias they faced because of their foreign origins, they told journalists.

Urban violence, which some politicians in France and some media abroad portrayed as a kind of Muslim uprising, fell back to normal levels on Thursday after three weeks in which 9,000 vehicles and many buildings were set on fire.

“They didn’t act like that because they’re Muslims, but because of the misery they’re living in,” said Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon in eastern France.

“There weren’t just Mohammads and Alis in those groups (of rioters) – there were Tonys and Daniels too,” said Dalil Boubakeur, the Paris Grand Mosque rector who is also head of France’s official Muslim Council (CFCM).

When the riots broke out after the accidental deaths of two youths apparently fleeing police in a poor Paris suburb, some conservative politicians publicly suggested radical Islamists were either behind the unrest or exploiting it to win new supporters.

When little proof for that emerged, some then began singling out polygamy – which is illegal but practiced among some black African immigrants – as a factor slowing integration here.

“This problem is tiny,” Kabtane said of polygamy, which unofficial estimates say concerns about 15,000 families around the country. “They just want to start a controversy.”

Reuters, 17 November 2005

Hijab costs woman French residency

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Moroccan woman living legally in France for eight years has been refused a long-term residence card because she covers her hair with an Islamic headscarf, says her lawyer.

A regional government official wrote in a rejection letter this month that the scarf worn by Chetouani El Khamsa was a sign of Islamic fundamentalism, her lawyer Pascale Torgemen said on Thursday.

Torgemen said El Khamsa planned to appeal and to file a suit for what she contends is a discriminatory, racist and sexist decision. “Does this mean that a man with a beard is systematically Islamist, a fundamentalist?” the lawyer said.

El Khamsa has lived legally in France – where her four children were born – since 1997, employed by her husband’s business. To replace her current residence card, which must be renewed annually, she wanted a residency permit that is valid for 10 years, like the one accorded her husband.

But in a 2 November letter refusing her the 10-year card, Francois Praver, sub-prefect in the town of Raincy outside Paris, noted that during her interview, El Khamsa wore a headscarf “entirely covering your neck and the roots of your hair, comparable to a hijab, sign of belonging to a fundamentalist Islam”.

Al Jazeera, 17 November 2005

British terror suspect to be extradited to US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British terror suspect to be extradited to US

By Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 17 November 2005

Peace campaigners attacked Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s “disgraceful” decision yesterday to extradite British terror suspect Barbar Ahmad to the US where he could be executed.

Mr Clarke ordered the extradition of Mr Ahmad, currently being held in Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, because of US allegations that he raised money to support terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan through websites.

The US government also accused Mr Ahmad of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Arizona, but is yet to back its accusations with evidence.

Mr Ahmad’s family said that they would be appealing against his extradition in the High Court.

In a posting on his website, Mr Ahmad – a computer expert from Tooting in south west London – said: “This decision should only come as a surprise to those who thought that there was still justice for Muslims in Britain.”

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Anti-racists condemn hoax leaflet in Thurrock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A hoax leaflet has been distributed in Thurrock, Essex, where there will be by-elections on Thursday 01 December in the Grays Riverside and the Homesteads wards. The leaflet has shocked local communities and appears to be an attempt by the far right to stir up racism in the area.

The leaflet is in the name of  “The London East Islamic Movement”, which no one appears to have heard of, including established Muslim organisations. The leaflet uses Unite Against Fascism’s logo without obtaining authorisation and mentions Thurrock UNISON – a local trade union branch. UAF and Thurrock UNISON have contacted the local police.

The British National Party (BNP) is standing candidates in both the Grays Riverside and the Homesteads wards. BNP leader Nick Griffin and former BNP Youth leader Mark Collett were charged with inciting racial hatred earlier this year.

Ken Livingstone, Unite Against Fascism Chair said: “This is clearly a hoax leaflet by racists and should be consigned to the dustbin. Extreme racists are trying to inflame local community tensions by distributing this racist leaflet. The London East Islamic Movement does not exist and UAF will continue to campaign against racists and fascists. We note that the leaflet is being distributed in the two wards where there will be by-elections on 01 December. We urge the decent majority of people to use their vote to stop racists.”

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Prince Charles, Islam’s new ambassador

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Islamic Caliphate is encroaching and England appears to be going down without a fight. Prince Charles certainly seems to be on board for the changeover.” Cinnamon Stillwell explains how “the British descent into dhimmitude” continues apace, with the assistance of the royal family.

Jewish Press, 16 November 2005

Update:  The article seems to have been deleted but can be found here.

Police used dum-dum bullets on Brazilian shot at tube station

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Brazilian man killed by police who mistook him for a terrorist was left “unrecognisable” after being shot eight times by officers using “dum-dum” style bullets that are banned from use in warfare.

Reaction to the news from leading British Muslim groups was critical of the police. Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum and a key figure in relations between police and the Muslim community, said: “If this is true this will further exacerbate the community’s already heightened concern about the police’s approach. This will reinforce the view of Jean Charles de Menezes’s family that this was an execution.”

Guardian, 16 November 2005

Another misleading BBC News report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The West’s image of Islam has been hijacked by extremists, delegates at the recent News Xchange broadcasting conference in Amsterdam heard.” Thus the beginning of a BBC News report entitled “Extremists hijack Islam’s image”.

In fact the debate was prompted by the results of a Kuwaiti government survey that criticised the depiction of Muslims in the Western media as “typically stereotypical and negative”. Speakers argued that “the role of the media should be to understand and illustrate the complexity of the Islamic world, rather than dealing in such generalisations”.

The argument was that the tiny minority of extremists who claim to represent Islam are falsely portrayed as typical of the religion as a whole. Abdul Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based paper al-Quds al-Arabi, is reported as complaining that, when radical groups “hijacked” Islam, the Western media simplistically depicted this as “Muslim terrorism”.