Showing solidarity with Muslims insults gays – Rod Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod_Liddle“The chief constable of Nottinghamshire police, Steve Green, has just bought 20,000 green ribbons for his officers to wear to that they can ‘show solidarity’ with the county’s Muslim community…. I suppose some people might find it a little sinister that the politically neutral police should have started making such a public declaration of allegiance. If you were gay, for example, you might wonder if the green ribbon meant that the entire police force supported Islam’s rigorous approach to homosexuality.”

Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times, 14 August 2005

MCB responds to the Observer’s ‘investigation’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In an extraordinary attack today, The Observer (Sunday 14th August 2005) has published a front page article, a two page ‘Investigation’ on pages eight and nine, together with an editorial, all seeking to vilify the Muslim Council of Britain.

Over three years ago, the Home Affairs editor at The Observer, Martin Bright, achieved some notoriety amongst British Muslims when he penned a cover story for the New Statesman (10th December 2001) entitled ‘The Great Koran Con Trick.’ In that piece, Bright tried his hardest – and quite miserably failed – to disprove the Divine origin of the Holy Qur’an.

So it was surprising to say the least to see that the front page story (‘Muslim Leaders in Feud With BBC’ and ‘Radical Links of UK’s ‘moderate’ Muslim Group’) in The Observer today was authored by the very same Martin Bright. Given Bright’s background we were not exactly anticipating reading a work of meticulous research and even-handedness. And we were proven correct in our assumption straight away.

MCB Press release, 14 August 2005

‘Islamic radicals run brainwashing camps in Lake District’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic extremists are running “indoctrination” camps in Britain’s national parks, a senior police officer has warned. “Wherever there’s a national park, you’ll find them – the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, the West Highlands.”

Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, says that the police need greater powers to combat the extremists’ efforts to radicalise young Muslims.

Mr Cramphorn, whose West Yorkshire force has played a leading role in the investigation into the July 7 bombings of London – the suicide bomber team was based on his patch – made his comments in an interview for The Spectator magazine.

Mr Cramphorn said: “Consider the training camps run in this country by the extremists. They’re not like IRA camps in Donegal where people are learning how to fire mortars. They’re actually pure indoctrination camps. It’s much more than just a few white-water-rafting trips in Wales.”

Mr Cramphorn, a former deputy chief constable of the RUC, voiced frustration at the extent of the authorities’ powers to combat such activities. He said that there might be lessons to be learned from the security and legal system evolved to tackle terrorism in Ulster. He added: “All we can do now is track them.”

Times, 12 August 2005

Update:  “The chief constable was using national parks as an analogy,” a West Yorkshire police spokeswoman explains. “He was not talking about camps as physical locations.”

Inayat Bunglawala on Bakri ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Omar Bakri“Bakri has been the source of an immense amount of frustration and dismay to Muslims ever since he came to these shores 20 years ago,” said Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

“With his very provocative language, he has contributed enormously to the demonisation of British Muslims. Far from being a leading Islamic jurist, he was not even the imam of any mosque. No mosque would have him apart from Finsbury Park. He is from the extreme fringe. Most Muslims would want nothing to do with him. He is derided by his peers for his half-baked ideas.

“He is someone who courted the media spotlight and now he has a symbiotic relationship with the tabloids. He didn’t have a platform before but now the tabloids have given him that platform. He is a very convenient bogeyman and they can use him to scare the pants off their readers.

“An example of how distorted his moral compass is that he said that if he knew of a planned attack he would not tell the police. The idea that Muslims cannot hand over a Muslim to a non-Muslim is absolute nonsense. There is a not a single verse in the Qur’an that suggests this. Quite the opposite, we are taught to be upholders of justice, preventing evil.

“No Muslim would shed any tears if he was not allowed back in because he has helped to create the climate of anger.”

But Mr Bunglawala said there should be caution on the issue of banning him as “there is a danger that it creates a precedent”.

Guardian, 13 August 2005

Posted in UK

Ontario Shariah law – a good decision

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Christian and Jewish family tribunals have successfully functioned in Ontario since 1991. But then treating women as lesser humans is not one of the religious tenets that christianity or judaism seems to embrace…. I believe that attempting to introduce Shariah into Canada is the beginning of a long campaign to islamicize this country – one way or another.”

Klaus Rohrich welcomes the decision to reject Islamic arbitration bodies in Ontario, but expresses regret that other, more civilised religions have suffered too.

Canada Free Press, 13 September 2005

This is the sort of right-wing bigotry the Worker Communist Party of Iran encouraged with their Islamophobic “anti-sharia” campaign.

Ban hijab not Bakri – Rod Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod LiddleRod Liddle finds it ironic that “it is the Charles Moores of our world – the high church, High Tory Right – who are the most persuasive and clear-headed in their public antipathy towards Islam and towards those who would, under the banner of political correctness, afford this still primitive creed some sort of equivalence with post-reformation Christianity”.

On the other side are “those Left-liberal multiculturalist commentators who continue to delude themselves that Islam as a whole is easily compatible with the Western notions of freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, democracy and equality. As a result, we now have a false dichotomy – between something called moderate Islam and this rogue creature, extremist Islam”.

Banning a marginal figure like Omar Bakri is, from Liddle’s perspective, irrelevant. It is Islam as a whole that has to be taken on, by “ensuring that Muslim schoolchildren receive a secular education and banishing the hijab”.

Spectator, 13 August 2005

I’m always amused by these commentators who preach the virtues of “post-reformation Christianity”. This would include the US Christian Right and Ian Paisley, would it?

End this chorus of intolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“At one level, the attack on multiculturalism is no more than a refined, middle-class version of ‘Paki-bashing’. Yet people who ought to know better have joined in the chorus of intolerance. To demand that Muslims abandon their way of life – what they eat, how they dress, which way they choose their husbands and wives – is to make a frontal assault upon their faith.”

Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, 12 August 2005

The Islamization of Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Europe is gradually being transformed into a society in which Islam takes its place, not just as an equal alongside the many other faith communities, but often as the dominant player. This is not purely, or even primarily, a matter of numbers, but is more a matter of control of the structures of society. It is not happening by chance but is the result of a careful and deliberate strategy by certain Muslim leaders…..

“European Muslims are Islamizing many aspects of life…. Halal meat is now routinely served in many British prisons, schools and hospitals, sometimes to Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and the hijab is worn in British schools…. Despite all these advances, Muslims still tend to portray themselves as victims in European society, while the majority society in turn struggles to affirm them and to avoid giving any accidental offence.”

Patrick Sookhdeo on the Virtue Online, 11 August 2005

Find the men behind brutal racist attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim who was beaten up by racist thugs in West Hampstead says he may leave the country to escape more abuse. Fawad Qayyum has to eat through a straw and his speech could be permanently damaged after his jaw was smashed in the attack near Finchley Road.

The 30-year-old was with a friend in Petros Gardens, near the Lithos Road Estate, at 9.30pm on Tuesday last week. His friend became involved in an argument about how his car was parked when two men appeared and started shouting anti-Muslim abuse at Mr Qayyum, who was standing nearby.

Mr Qayyum said: “Two or three guys came and started abusing me saying, ‘We are going to kill you, we are going to smash the car’. Next they punched me in the face, maybe with a weapon. I was on the floor and they kept punching me. I think they might have kicked me as well but I did not have my full senses.”

The beating was so severe he had to stay at the Royal Free Hospital for three days and now faces a string of operations.

Despite dozens of people witnessing the incident, detectives have hit a wall of silence as nobody has come forward with the attackers’ identity.

Detective Constable Cheryl Haque, of Camden Police, said they need help from neighbours. She said: “A witness has told us it was racially motivated but she doesn’t want to give a statement. I think a lot of people have got information and they know who did it but they are scared about speaking out.”

Mr Qayyum, a data support analyst, said due to the attack and the anti-Muslim feeling surfacing since the July 7 bombings he has considered leaving the country. He said: “I am really thinking it is not safe here. I have lived here most of my life but I am thinking of going back to Pakistan. I got my education here and I have put my heart and soul into this country, but at this stage I feel like a stranger.”

Mr Qayyum, who is staying with friends off Finchley Road, urged members of the community to help catch the attackers. He said: “This is not just for me but these people will think they can get away with it and attack more innocent victims.”

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