Tariq Ramadan ‘urges violence for Islam’, claims Standard

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Another hysterical attack on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, from the Evening Standard. Dr al-Qaradawi, Tariq Ramadan and Azzam Tamimi of MAB are bracketed with Abu Qatada and Omar Bakri as “urging violence for Islam”.

Ken welcomes cleric who backed bombers

by Joe Murphy and Isabel Oakshott

Evening Standard, 18 July 2005

Ken Livingstone today backed an extreme Muslim cleric despite mounting calls to ban him from Britain. The Mayor said there was nothing wrong with allowing Yusuf al-Qaradawi to visit London to give a lecture.

The Egyptian-born scholar is banned from the US after praising suicide bombers as martyrs and vilifying Jews and homosexuals.

The Government is under intense pressure to stop allowing Islamic radicals to enter Britain – with a damning report today claiming extremists have been allowed to flourish in London. But today the Mayor said that the scholar should be given a voice in the wake of the London bombings.

Al-Qaradawi has been invited to make a speech to an Islamic conference in Manchester on 7 August. The 79-year-old was at the centre of uproar last year when Mr Livingstone welcomed him to City Hall despite protests. Demonstrations were mounted by a coalition of Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and gay people. His latest visit to London will fuel criticism that the Government is playing into the hands of terrorists.

However, the Mayor says that Al-Qaradawi has condemned the London bombings. Asked if he would be welcoming the cleric again, Mr Livingstone today refused to give a direct answer. But he issued a statement which read:

“London at this time urgently needs people in all communities, above all in the Muslim community, who unequivocally condemn the bombings in London on 7 July and help us to isolate, find and deal with those considering further atrocities. I am for banning anyone who supports or is any way equivocal about condemning the terrorist attacks on London.”

Mr Livingstone said he was satisfied that Al-Qaradawi had condemned the atrocity as being wholly incompatible with Islam. He went on: “I believe it important that Britain’s Islamic community hears, through every means possible, condemnation of this from leading Islamic figures and urge them to speak out with all the means they possess on this issue.”

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Declare war on economic jihad, urges Mail’s Israel correspondent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Matthew Kalman, the Daily Mail‘s correspondent in Israel, asserts that the London bombings require a ban on fundraising for charities linked to Hamas and Hezbollah. Difficult to see the logic of that, given that neither Hamas nor Hezbollah had anything to do with the London bombings – indeed, both organisations have unequivocally condemned the attacks. Needless to say, the Mail also tries to implicate Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

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‘Multi-culturalism takes on a new religious flavour’ – BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… the ultimate price we pay for our altruism is the loss of our country and the extinction of our kind. Already in some parliamentary constituencies in Britain an astonishing 40% of the population are Muslim. With the much higher birthrate amongst the Islamic community within the next few decades we have to face the reality that our country is on course to become an Islamic state.”

Nazis make their contribution to the struggle against multiculturalism.

BNP news release, 18 July 2005

Ex-UK minister links blasts to Iraq war

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Former British cabinet minister Clare Short said Sunday, July 17, she “had no doubt” the London bombings were linked to Britain’s role in the US-led invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq, warning that news anti-terror laws would only recruit more extremists.

“Some of the voices that have been coming from the government talk as though this is all evil, and that everything we do is fine,” Short said in an interview to be broadcast on the GMTV television program later in the day, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). “When in fact we are implicit in the slaughter of large numbers of civilians in Iraq and supporting a Middle East policy that for the Palestinians creates this sense of double standards – that feeds anger,” she stressed.

Islam Online, 17 July 2005

Posted in UK

Guardian journalist ‘revealed as hardline Islamist’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Guardian newspaper is refusing to sack one of its staff reporters despite confirming that he is a member of one of Britain’s most extreme Islamist groups. Dilpazier Aslam, who has been allowed to report on the London bombings from Leeds and was also given space to write a column in last Wednesday’s edition of The Guardian, is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical world organisation which seeks to form a global Islamic state regulated by sharia law.”

Independent on Sunday, 17 July 2005

Shiv Malik takes up the witch-hunt against Dilpazier Aslam initiated by the Daily Ablution and Harry’s Place blogs.

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The ‘sheikh of death’ must be barred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

islamicawakeningThus the title of a long rant by one Mark Dooley in the Sunday Independent, calling for Yusuf al-Qaradawi (aka “the theologian of terror”) to be banned from the Republic of Ireland, where the European Council of Fatwa and Research has its headquarters.

You have to admire Dooley’s diligence. He’s managed to find almost every false allegation ever made against Qaradawi and put them all in his article.

Qaradawi is apparently “a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood”, has stated that “fighting American civilians in Iraq is a duty for all Muslims” and advocates “the use children as suicide bombers”, while a letter naming Qaradawi as a “Sheikh of death” and accusing him of “providing a religious cover for terrorism” was signed by “over 2,500 Muslim scholars”.

None of which is true.

Tube bombs ‘linked to Iraq conflict’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the terrorist attacks in London, a respected independent thinktank on foreign affairs, the Chatham House organisation, says today.

According to the body, which includes leading academics and former civil servants among its members, the key problem in the UK for preventing terrorism is that the country is “riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror”.

It says Britain’s ability to carry out counter-terrorism measures has also been hampered because the US is always in the driving seat in deciding policy.

Guardian, 18 July 2005

The Guardian report also quotes Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain as saying that the Muslim community would not suffer in silence for the crimes of the suicide bombers:

“We will continue to talk, we will continue to write and we will continue to challenge the government. I say to Muslims, do not bow to pressure to keep accepting those pointing fingers at you. Say, ‘No, I’m not responsible for what happened on July 7. My heart bleeds, I condemn it, yes, but I did not make those boys angry. I did not send those bombs to Iraq. I do not keep people locked in Guantánamo Bay and I do not have anything to do with Abu Ghraib, except to denounce it.’ Politicians, see what you have done to this world?

Posted in UK

Muslims should not be blamed for work of a few: CAIR

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim HooperThe vast majority of peaceful Muslims should not be blamed for the work of a few disgruntled “criminals”, a leading American Muslim activist said Sunday, July 17.

“The problem is that one or two criminals can create an impression that an entire community is to be blamed, and so you are always subject to those one or two people,” Ibrahim Hooper, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “If you know the reality, you can see these handful of people as the aberration that they are – the same way that we didn’t say Catholicism was bad when the IRA was blowing up things in London.”

Islam Online, 17 July 2005

Express calls for ban on Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

No place in our country for this preacher of hate

Sunday Express, 17 July 2005

Over the past 10 days, shocking evidence has emerged of the extent to which hard-line Islamic extremism has taken hold in Britain. Of the four suicide bombers, three were born here. The police are certain there is an Al Qaeda connection – there are reports that captured Al Qaeda operatives actually warned of plans to bomb London’s transport system. Against that appalling background comes the news that Home Secretary Charles Clarke is to allow Tariq Ramadan, an Egyptian-born academic who justifies terrorism, access to this country.

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