Ban public servants wearing headscarves – Dutch opinion poll

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A majority of the Dutch public wants a new law to ban public servants from wearing headscarves or “other Islamic attire”, a new poll has found. Polling organisation TNS Nipo carried out the research for the latest edition of independent magazine Binnenlands Bestuur.

Expatica, 5 August 2005

Needless to say, this meets with approval of Rebecca Bynum: Dhimmi Watch, 7 August 2005

The news is also greeted enthusiastically by the fascists of the BNP, who seem to be getting a lot of their inspiration from Ms Bynum and her colleague Robert Spencer these days: “Once again plucky Netherlanders are unravelling the multi-cultural experiment forced upon them by decadent and traitorous politicians. Seen for years as the most easy going, tolerant and liberal nation in Europe, the Dutch people are fighting back to reclaim their society from the twisted multi-culturalists.”

BNP news article, 7 August 2005

However, a closer reading of the Expatica report indicates that it wasn’t in fact “the Dutch public” whose views were surveyed: “TNS Nipo questioned 433 adults – 292 government employees and 50 municipal aldermen – for the poll.”

‘Islamofascism poses a serious and imminent threat’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I was phoned by a contact of mine last week. Won’t mention his name. He’s the director of a pressure group, prominent in the media, well-connected and desperately scared – and I really mean scared – that racial war is breaking out in Britain…. he wasn’t talking about white racism; he was talking about Asian racism, British Asian racism…. Hatred of white people (and black people) is, he insisted, rampant among Britain’s Asian community and Islamofascism poses a serious and imminent threat to public order.

“This was not a Tory MP or a member of the BNP, but a rational, well-connected, media-friendly liberal intellectual. And he is not alone. A number of politicians are getting worried too, like the north of England left-wing Labour MP Ann Cryer who spoke out last week about the subjugation of Asian women and the growth of extremism.”

Iain MacWhirter in the Sunday Herald, 7 August 2005

Update:  Read Sohaib Saeed’s response here.

Britain faces ‘full-blown Islamist insurgency’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Intelligence chiefs are warning Tony Blair that Britain faces a full-blown Islamist insurgency, sustained by thousands of young Muslim men with military training now resident in this country…. A well-connected source said there were more than 100,000 people in Britain from ‘completely militarised’ regions, including Somalia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan and territories bordering the country. ‘Every one of them knows how to use an AK-47,’ said the source. ‘About 10 per cent can strip and reassemble such a weapon blindfolded, and probably a similar proportion have some knowledge of how to use military explosives. That adds up to tens of thousands of men’.”

Independent on Sunday, 7 August 2005

Posted in UK

Nick Cohen resumes his bloc with the Right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

And it’s over to Nick Cohen at the Observer for the usual outpouring of Islamophobic bile. We are subjected to yet another diatribe against “Islamism”, which apparently “wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar – and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal”. And just in case you are tempted to point out that there are plenty of “Islamists” who favour democratic reform and civil liberties, Cohen follows this up with a denunciation of the “Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who believe that Muslims who freely decide to change their religion or renounce religion should be executed”.

Observer, 7 August 2005

Tebbit: Enoch Powell’s prophecy for Britain was correct

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Lord Tebbit, the former chairman of the Conservative Party, has claimed Enoch Powell’s controversial ‘river of blood’ speech in 1968 was a correct prophesy of the climate of fear that Britain is now facing following the two terrorist bomb attacks in London last month.

In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Lord Tebbit claimed Powell’s views were misinterpreted as racist and that Powell’s warning was focused on the dangers of a multicultural British society that would be fed from uncontrolled immigration…. Tebbit’s overt backing for a Powellite stance on immigration, shows the extent to which criticism of multiculturalism has become almost mainstream since the London attacks.”

Sunday Herald, 7 August 2005

Muslims invest money in London shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One city is emerging as the preferred city for Qu’ran friendly, Shariah compliant property investments and it is not Mecca, Ankara, Dubai or Tehran, it’s London! Yes London is the favourite place for wealthy Muslims to invest their money…. London based branches of global banks and investment funds are falling over themselves arranging for wealthy oil sheikhs, heroin exporters and feudal pillaging warlords to buy up Britain’s shopping centres, tower blocks and country estates. Maybe this is desirable, the lesser of the two evils forced upon us by our ‘Shariah compliant’ government which has eased regulation to allow these financial practices – at least these new landlords have too much money to even think about strapping explosives around their waist.”

BNP news article, 7 August 2005

Outrage! make prats of themselves over Qaradawi again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hijab Conference“The Crown Prince of Qatar should be stoned to death for being gay, according to Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim fundamentalist scholar who is based in Qatar. These allegations appear in the Middle East news magazine Aljazeera….

“Aljazeera quotes Dr Qaradawi as saying: ‘The scholars of Islam, such as Malik, Ash-Shafi’i, Ahmad and Ishaaq said that (the person guilty of this crime) should be stoned, whether he is married or unmarried’.”

Outrage! press release, 5 August 2005

As Islamophobia Watch has pointed out, the quotation is not from Dr al-Qaradawi at all, but from a Saudi Wahhabist named Mohammed Salih Al-Munajjid.

See here and here.

As for Qaradawi’s supposed fatwa “Homosexuality and Lesbianism: Sexual Perversions”, the link provided by Outrage! shows that this was not a fatwa issued by Qaradawi but by a “Group of Muftis”. Their fatwa did include a quotation from Qaradawi in which he summarised the opinions of various scholars on the punishment for homosexuality, but did not state his own view. Moreover, the quote was taken from his book The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam, which was published … in 1960!

If Dr al-Qaradawi does indeed called for the execution of gay men, then you would have thought that Outrage! would have been able to find some statement to that effect from his numerous writings and broadcasts over the subsequent forty-five years. They have been unable to find a single one.

Hizb ut-Tahrir slams Blair’s ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain has slammed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s pledge to ban the Islamic group in the country as a part of anti-terror measures that also drew immediate criticism from rights groups and individual lawyers.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir is a non-violent political party,” spokesman Imran Waheed told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Friday, August 5.

“Our members are all for political expression, not for violence,” he said, calling Blair’s remarks “most unjust” and pledged the group would battle any ban via the courts.

Islam Online, 6 August 2005

As British Muslims we feel marginalised, criminalised

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“As British Muslims we had been asked whether we were British or Muslim – as if we could not be both. It would have been better for the government to invite their harshest critics. But Blair never listened to the millions who marched against war. He ignored real democracy, opening a Pandora’s Box releasing the politics of hate.”

Glasgow human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar in a letter to The Herald.

Continue reading →

One year on, still no justice for Babar Ahmad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

IHRC notes with great concern the first anniversary of the imprisonment without charge of British political prisoner Babar Ahmad. Babar has spent 365 days in prison now while he awaits the British government to decide whether to extradite him to the US where he is likely to face torture or even death. To date, not a single shred of evidence has been produced in court to indicate his guilt. Furthermore to date, not a single police officer has been held responsible for the brutal life-threatening assault on Babar during his initial arrest in December 2003.

IHRC press release, 5 August 2005