Tory MP says Ukip politician’s call for Muslim code of conduct is frightening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Halfon CFI & HJSGerard Batten, the senior Ukip politician who called for Muslims to sign a code of conduct, has been accused of taking an “unbelievably sinister” position that is comparable to asking members of the faith to wear a yellow star.

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, called on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to sack Batten for his comments, after it emerged the Ukip MEP had helped write a “charter of Muslim understanding”. The document calls on Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and accepting the need to modify the Qur’an.

Halfon, who is Jewish and has spoken out repeatedly against Islamic extremism, told the Guardian he considered Batten’s views “unbelievably sinister” and “frightening”. He tweeted: “Big difference btwn lawful Muslims & extreme Islamists. UKIP MEP Batten’s statement a 1st step to wearing a Yellow Star.”

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Right-wing blogger ‘exposes’ sinister Muslim immigration plot in Coke’s Super Bowl ad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Coca Cola Super Bowl adCoca Cola’s one-minute, multilingual Super Bowl ad was apparently a lot of things to many people. To some, it was an insult to the United States and the English language, while to others it was a tribute to American diversity or a highly effective marketing tool.

But to former Hollywood agent Pat Dollard, the ad “exposed” a “stealth” appeal for immigration amnesty by its shadowy Muslim chief executive officer. “Coca Cola has been on a major amnesty push for at least a year in the hopes that it can obtain cheap labor,” Dollard wrote on his self-titled blog. “And because its CEO Muhtar Kent is a Muslim who was raised in places like Iran and Indonesia, perhaps for even more sinister reasons.”

The stage thus set, the documentary filmmaker and Breitbart correspondent argues that the ad was “designed to influence public opinion.” Perhaps recognizing that every paid and unpaid advertisement – whether they air on the most-watched TV program in history or overnight on some obscure local channel – is intended to influence the public, Dollard attempts to tie Coke’s ad into a broader conspiracy.

“Muhtar is engaging in the amnesty war just like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is,” Dollard warns. “And I’d be curious to know just how much of his salary and Coke’s profits go to Muslim ‘charities’ that are really fronts for terrorist organizations, as most Muslim ‘charities’ are.”

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Why Sochi has no mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SochiRussian president Vladimir Putin calls Sochi, site of February’s Winter Olympics, “the biggest construction site on the planet,” and for good reason.

Since being awarded the games in 2007, the sub-tropical Black Sea city has built 442 miles of fiber-optic cables, 200 miles of roads, 55 bridges, 13 train stations, nine hotels for media outlets, six post offices, five schools, a new airport, a $265 million ski jump, a bobsled track, a ski course, two Olympic villages, an 815-acre floating archipelago, and a partridge in a pear tree.

But one item on local residents’ wish list was met with a pocket veto—a request to build a mosque for Sochi’s 20,000 Muslim residents, many of whom have migrated to the city over the last decade to take jobs building the Olympic facilities.

The mosque issue has long been a sore spot in Sochi, where Muslim leaders have been pushing for a new place to worship since 1996. “I’m so tired of writing letters – whole files – it just drags on and on,” a Muslim organizer told the Norwegian news organization Forum 18 in 2006. One decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, the city’s Muslims were still holding religious ceremonies in cramped basements.

In a 2009 visit to Moscow’s Cathedral Mosque, the nation’s largest, then-president Dmitry Medvedev was asked by the head of the Russian Mufties Council if would support a Sochi mosque project. Medvedev said yes. But in the years since, talks between Muslim leaders and the city government have largely fizzled.

But city leaders, such as deputy mayor Anatoli Rykov, have argued that there’s already a mosque nearby – 50 miles outside the city in the mountain village of Tkhagapsh, population 180. Tkhagapsh is 2 hours and 27 minutes by car from downtown Sochi, and the city’s brand new light rail line, hubbed at the country’s newest, largest train station, doesn’t go there. The mosque is a one-room wood-frame building.

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New Jersey woman says bosses ordered her to remove hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Elmwood Park woman claims she faced religious discrimination at her job at a Saddle Brook factory when her bosses ordered her to remove her hijab, or head scarf.

Naima Mnasri, who is Muslim, filed a complaint late in January with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mnasri said she was ordered to remove her hijab at her second day of work on Jan. 17 while she was awaiting her day’s assignment at Paradigm Packaging, which makes plastic bottles for vitamins and medications.

In the complaint, she alleged that a supervisor and floor manager “singled her out” and told her she had to remove the head scarf to work there, both for safety reasons and because no religious symbols were permitted at the factory. Mnasri contested that the hijab, which covers her head, neck and chest, was part of her religious observance and that she had the right under the law to wear one. She left the job that day over the incident, she said.

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Florida girl attacked after wearing hijab to school

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zahrah HabibullaA Florida girl said she has been verbally and physically assaulted because she wears a hijab, or head scarf, to school.

Zahrah Habibulla, 14, said she didn’t have problems at school with other children until she started wearing her hijab on Dec. 14. The Polk County teen said she wears the hijab for religious reasons. “I’ve been bullied in school,” she said. “I had verbal assaults, physical assaults.”

Each time the teen was attacked, she told her mother, who then called the principal of Ridge Community High School. Zahrah’s parents told WESH 2 News in an exclusive interview that they want something done before their daughter is hurt. “It breaks my heart. I don’t want to see that,” said Zameena Habibulla. “I’m hoping for a safer school for her. Every day she goes to school I’ve got fear.”

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Ukip MEP says British Muslims should sign charter rejecting violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gerard BattenA Ukip MEP believes that British Muslims should sign a special code of conduct and warns that it was a big mistake for Europe to allow “an explosion of mosques across their land”.

Gerard Batten, who represents London and is member of the party’s executive, told the Guardian on Tuesday that he stood by a “charter of Muslim understanding“, which he commissioned in 2006. The document asks Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and says parts of the Qur’an that promote “violent physical Jihad” should be regarded as “inapplicable, invalid and non-Islamic”.

Critics said his comments represent the “ugliest side of Ukip” and “overlap with the far-right”, in spite of the efforts of party leader Nigel Farage to create a disciplined election machine ahead of the European elections.

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Bacon and hate graffiti at California mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center of Manteca graffitiThe Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate vandalism of a California mosque as a possible hate crime.

Law enforcement authorities in Manteca, Calif., are investigating strips of raw bacon and hate graffiti found on the grounds of the Islamic Center of Manteca last week as a possible bias-motivated crime. Hate graffiti sprayed on the mosque included “F*** Islam” on the facility’s sign and on the ground near the entrance.

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Lega Nord denounces plan for Islamic museum in Venice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lega Nord anti-Islam posterVenice Mayor Giorgio Orsoni wants to put his city on the map as a site of internationally weighty institutions, and a possible Islamic museum plus study center is one of them.

On Monday, the mayor thanked Premier Enrico Letta for considering such a museum for the iconic city’s Grand Canal, which in Orsoni’s view would dovetail nicely with an existing Museum of Oriental Arts, a Council of Europe office in St. Mark’s Square that often hosts Aspen Institute meetings, and a planned Orthodox Church study center, which would rise in the Mestre district on mainland Venice.

The Italian premier said during a trip to Doha that his government “made a commitment to explore the opportunity to build an Islamic museum in Venice on the Grand Canal”. Letta is in the Persian Gulf state on a mission to drum up investment to help to pull the Italian economy after its longest postwar recession.

Orsoni said the concept fits in with Venice’s municipal goal of continuing to bring “great cultural institutions of international breadth to Venice”. The city offered “a special thanks to … Letta for his interest in the creation of an Islamic museum of great international scope in Venice, a sign of the history of this city and its openness to dialogue between cultures and religions”, added Orsoni.

The project was slammed Monday by the regionalist, anti-immigrant Northern League, which suggested Letta should focus on the economy and not cultural institutions. Massimo Bitonci, Senate whip for the League, accused Letta of working to spread Islam in Italy. “We do not want any Islamic museum in Venice”, Bitonci said. “Letta would do better to focus on the economic crisis instead of thinking (of ways) to spread Islam”, he added.

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Highly qualified Muslim immigrants face employment discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week, Quebec business interests sounded an alarm about the negative economic ramifications on the province of the proposed values charter. First the Conseil du patronat and then the head of a cable and media company warned that Bill 60 would discourage immigrants needed for economic growth.

This issue arose the first day of the charter hearings last month, when the leader of a Muslim organization talked about a crisis among families of highly qualified North Africans who are being shut out of jobs in their fields.

Samira Laouni, of Communication pour l’ouverture et le rapprochement interculturel, estimated that current unemployment in the North African community is around 30 per cent – even though overall unemployment in Montreal is roughly 8 per cent. Laouni contends that employment discrimination against Muslims started after 9/11 and deteriorated after the Herouxville incident in 2007, when the town council there passed a code of conduct for minorities targeting Muslims. She commented that since the proposal of the Quebec values charter, the employment situation for Muslims has worsened.

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