Defend civil liberties

Posted on by Bob Pitt

March for Peace and LibertyThe so-called “War on Terror” has made our world a more dangerous place. 85 percent of the British people believe that there is a link between the dreadful bombings in London and the illegal invasion of Iraq. This link is acknowledged by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Chatham House think-tank.

The policy is seen by many as a war on Islam with constant rhetoric by Bush and Blair about “fighting evil ideology”, “sharing our values” and demonising any organisation or person who speaks out against injustice. As a result, an atmosphere of hate and fear is created, attacks on Muslims have recently increased by 600 percent. Furthermore, the onslaught by right-wing extremists on Islam as a religion has crossed every boundary.

Muslims are not in denial, we are in the forefront of fighting terror against innocent civilians which ever the form or shape it takes. But our government is turning a blind eye to continuous oppression, occupation and state-sponsored terrorism around the world.

The first casualty of the “War on Terror” is our own freedom and liberties. We say “don’t take liberties with our liberties”. The new measures proposed by the Prime Minster will remove fundamental freedoms in British society and will not make our country safer.

MAB press release, 1 September 2005

Religion’s political role

Posted on by Bob Pitt

George Galloway (1)Andrew Anthony (G2, August 31) accuses me of inconsistency, even hypocrisy. But that charge rebounds. By his own casuistry, the anti-religious Anthony must surely be inconsistent in celebrating the passing of the atheist Soviet Union. The inconsistency mounts when, in the name of liberal values, he equates all expression of political Islam with fascism. Those Muslim activists who draw on their traditions in the fight against the BNP are, in his eyes, of a piece with Mussolini and Hitler.

Movements against oppression and exploitation have fought under many different banners. For many it has been a version of socialism or radical nationalism. For many others today it is through radical interpretations of religion. Are the Latin American liberation theologists to be considered part of Anthony’s fascist menace? Or is he, as seems apparent, slandering Islam as a uniquely evil religion?

The grotesque intolerance of self-appointed “liberal” defenders of tolerance stands bare. They should come clean. Their problem is not with religion over secularism; it is with the increasing numbers of people – religious and non-religious – who are coming together in political movements to challenge corporate power and the Bush/Blair doctrine of permanent war.

George Galloway MP
Respect, Bethnal Green and Bow

Letter in Guardian, 1 September 2005

The media has misrepresented our faith, claim Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The media has misrepresented the Muslim faith and aggravated the “Islamaphobic” backlash to the July bombings, members of Birmingham’s Muslim community have claimed. The accusations were made during the visit of Home Office Minister Paul Goggins to the Victoria Street Mosque in Aston yesterday. Members of the mosque said they felt let down by the negative and extreme image of Muslims portrayed in television and newspapers.

Birmingham Post, 1 September 2005

Mad Mel and Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The government’s desperation to engage with ‘moderate’ Islam appears to mean that it is keen to embrace even those who believe in Islamicising the west, as long as they make ritual noises denouncing the terror that flows from such an agenda. At the root of this is its determination to avoid at all costs being thought to have a problem with the current state of Islam itself as opposed to a few ‘unrepresentative’ terrorists, whose motivation will therefore be ascribed to everything but. Such myopia spells cultural suicide.”

Mad Mel condemns the government’s decision to appoint Tariq Ramadan to a Home Office task force.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 31 August 2005

As you might anticipate, she parrots accusations from Daniel Pipes’ attack on Professor Ramadan (the same one that provided the basis for the Sun’s recent witch-hunt). For Ramadan’s demolition of Pipes’ slanders, see here

Muslim students lay the blame on No.10

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim anger over British foreign policy, particularly the war against Iraq, resurfaced yesterday in a survey of Muslim students.

Almost all of the students who took part in the research said that they were unhappy with Tony Blair’s policy in the Middle East and two thirds said that they felt it had contributed to the London bombings. Half of the respondents in the poll, which was organised by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, said they had experienced Islamophobia and nine out of 10 objected to the way they were portrayed in the media.

The preliminary results of the survey were revealed at a conference in London’s City Hall addressed by a panel including Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, Government ministers and commentators.

Wakkas Khan, the president of the federation, which represents 90,000 Muslim students, said: “The Prime Minister’s continuing refusal to accept that his decisions could have led to such extreme consequences does nothing to appease the Muslim community, and on the contrary, seems to be causing more resentment amongst young Muslims. It is important now for Mr Blair to accept that foreign policy is a serious concern and to start to do something about it rather than being seen to brush it aside.”

Mr Livingstone said: “Anti-terrorist measures must be directed against those carrying out, planning or supporting such terrorist attacks and not against those who are our allies in dealing with the terrorists. Attempts to criminalise legitimate political views, for example on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, would destroy the trust, which is essential to isolate and deal with real terrorists.” He told Muslim students that it was their duty to challenge a “rising tide of Islamaphobia” in the media.

Daily Telegraph, 1 September 2005

UK Muslims reject Al-Qaeda justification for attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim minority in Britain condemned Al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for the London attacks, rejecting its justification for carrying out the terrorist attacks by linking them to the atrocities committed in Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Nothing can ever justify committing acts of terrorism against innocent civilians,” Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, told the BBC News Online Friday, September 2. “Holding all British people responsible for the Iraq war is just plain wrong – this country was bitterly divided and many millions, perhaps the majority, clearly opposed the war.”

In a footage aired on the Doha-based Al-Jazeera Thursday, Mohamed Sidique Khan, one of the alleged four bombers of the London attacks, said atrocities committed by the western countries against Muslims around the world drove him to bomb the London transport system.

“Your democratically elected governments continue to commit atrocities against my people over the world,” Khan, 30, said in English, Agence France Presse (AFP) said.

“Their support makes you directly responsible just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim bothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing the gassing, the imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight.”

The video, accompanied by a separate message by Al-Qaeda’s number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was the first time the one of the bombers has been heard explaining the rationale for Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.

Islam Online, 2 September 2005

See also BBC News, 2 September 2005 and IHRC press release, 1 September 2005

Posted in UK

Pope meets racist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FallaciPope Benedict XVI held a meeting at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, a strident critic of Islam, Vatican sources confirmed. The 76-year-old writer, who describes herself as an atheist Christian and was sued in Italy for insulting the Muslim faith in one of her books, asked to meet the pope, a source said. The meeting on Saturday between Benedict XVI and the former war correspondent became public only after Fallaci’s associates let slip that the meeting took place.

Based in the United States where she is being treated for cancer, Fallaci once said in a newspaper interview that she was comforted by the writings of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became pope after the death of John Paul II. “Europe is no longer Europe, it is ‘Eurabia,’ a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense,” Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal on June 23. “Servility to the invaders has poisoned democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and for the concept itself of liberty,” she said. “I feel less alone when I read Ratzinger’s books,” the journalist added.

But writing in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera three weeks later, she said integrating Muslims in Western society was a “nightmare” and criticised the pope’s call for dialogue with Muslim leaders after the July 7 London suicide bombings.

AFP report, 30 August 2005

Muslim students ‘speak on terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A conference in London is hoping to forge bonds between Muslim students, police and other public authorities, organisers say. The event has been organised in response to last month’s terror attacks.

Student Wakkas Khan said it was a chance for the UK’s 90,000 Muslim students to be heard. “We want to hear what they believe needs changing and where the solutions lie,” he said.

“Following the attacks in London we have seen Muslim youth thrust into the spotlight. Through this conference we ask them directly about their concerns and give them an opportunity to state openly and frankly their views,” added Mr Khan, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis).

BBC News, 31 August 2005