A Muslim officer facing the sack from the Metropolitan police claimed today he was racially abused by colleagues. PC Kay Hasan, 29, was served a notice of dismissal following a series of formal complaints from members of the public and colleagues. He is fighting the dismissal, claiming he was subjected to racist insults and discrimination. In the worst incident his locker at Notting Hill police station was daubed with graffiti that read: “Clean me. I used to belong to a dirty Muzzie”. Mr Hasan says “Muzzie” is a derogatory term for Muslims.
Religious hatred bill is unveiled
Controversial plans to make incitement to religious hatred illegal are being unveiled by the government. The government says the legislation is a response to the concerns of faith groups, particularly Muslims.
The Muslim Council of Britain has welcomed the move, arguing that the courts have already extended such protection to Sikh and Jewish people. Sher Khan, a council spokesman, said to protect some groups but not others contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.
The BNP states that the new law “is intended to stop the British National Party and other individuals pointing out that Islamic fundamentalism poses a serious threat to the well being of Britain. It has been drafted at the behest of Muslim organisations and New Labour’s increasing dependence upon the Islamic vote to stay in power has led to the creation of this piece of legislation. The law is a further erosion of free speech and one which even gay actor and comedian Stephen Fry called ‘a sop to Muslims’ on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon.”
The fascists promise: “If the Bill does become law the BNP will not stop its public awareness campaign [sic] against militant Islam and we will find ways around the legislation to continue to point out that the Islamic wolf is already in the secular/Christian/non-Muslim lamb’s pen.”
Over at Jihad Watch, under the heading “Freedom of speech in grave peril”, Robert Spencer warns that the adoption of such legislation “would be a cornerstone of the Islamization of Britain”.
Protest over Israel Quran abuse report
Palestinian prisoners at an Israeli prison have gone on hunger strike after reports accused Israeli soldiers of desecrating the Quran while searching Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Arab member of parliament Ahmed Tibi, who represents an Israeli Arab political party, said he received complaints from prisoners at the Megiddo prison that soldiers tore and stepped on three copies of the Quran – the Islamic holy book – while searching Palestinians and their possessions on Tuesday morning.
See also Islam Online, 8 June 2005
Show trial in Florida
“After more than two years in prison – much of it spent in solitary confinement – former University of South Florida professor and political activist Sami Al-Arian finally went on trial in Tampa, Fla., this week. There’s little chance, however, that Al-Arian will be able to get a fair trial…. This trial is part of the U.S. government’s post-September 11 witch-hunt of Arabs and Muslims.”
Socialist Worker (US), 10 June 2005
See also Islam Online, 7 June 2005 and the Free Sami Al-Arian campaign
Rights report attacks British anti-terror laws
A top European human rights watchdog said on Wednesday Britain’s anti-terrorism laws breached European standards and could force London to opt out of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite improvements, Britain still tended to see human rights as an obstacle to the criminal justice system, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Alvaro Gil-Robles said in a report.
He welcomed a decision by Britain’s top court which forced Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government to drop a measure allowing detention of foreign terrorist suspects without charge. But problems remained with the law that replaced it. The 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act allows Britain’s Home Secretary (interior minister) to issue “control orders” against terrorism suspects, which restrict their freedom of movement, where they live and with whom they may communicate.
“The Act acknowledges some … of these restrictions may be incompatible with Article 5 (of the European Convention on Human Rights) on the right to liberty, in which case the possibility of derogating from the UK’s obligations under this article is foreseen,” the report said.
Carter calls on US to shut down Guantánamo
Former President Jimmy Carter called on the United States on Tuesday to shut down its prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to demonstrate the country’s commitment to protecting human rights.
“Despite President George W. Bush’s bold reminder that America is determined to promote freedom and democracy around the world, the U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation as a champion of human rights because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo,” Mr. Carter said in a news conference following a two-day human rights conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta.
In addition to closing Guantánamo Bay and two dozen other secret detention facilities, Mr. Carter said, the United States needs to make sure no detainees are held incommunicado and that they all be told the charges against them.
His other recommendations included that the United States stop transferring detainees to foreign countries where torture has been reported and that an independent commission be created to investigate where terrorism suspects are held in American custody.
Mr. Carter also said that the United States should reaffirm its commitment to due process and international law, and assure that the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners are enforced.
Islamic leaders, two others held in California terror probe
Federal agents searched the homes of two Islamic leaders in Lodi, California, and have made four arrests since Sunday, part of an ongoing terrorism investigation, according to the FBI and witnesses. Two of those arrested are top Muslim leaders in Lodi, including one who publicly condemned the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and issued a declaration of peace with Christian and Jewish leaders in Lodi three years ago
The war against Islam
“Among the factors leading to the French and Dutch rejections of the European constitution last week, none looms more ominously than the nightmare of antagonism between ‘the West’ and Islam. Many Europeans fear a rising tide of green, both within the continent and from outside it. Where once communists threatened, now Muslims do.”
James Carroll in the Boston Globe, 7 June 2005
Miami Islamic school vandalized for third time in past year
Islamic leaders renewed their calls for a hate-crime investigation on Tuesday after someone threw a rock through the glass doors of the Islamic School of Miami.
The incident, which occurred Monday, was the third at the mosque and the fifth in South Florida in the past year, according to Altaf Ali, executive director of the Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Ali said worshipers arrived at the mosque located at 11699 SW 147th Ave., at about 5 a.m. Tuesday and found the gate leading into the center broken and the two glass doors shattered. The damage came a week after vandals shattered another window there on May 28.
Manufacturing Muslim ‘terrorists’
The US has a vast and very expensive Homeland Security bureaucracy with nothing to do. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in America since 2001. There have been a vast quantity of terror alerts, the purpose of which was to scare Americans into supporting an unnecessary and illegal aggressive attack on Iraq.
As very few, if any, real terrorists have turned up, the FBI has resorted to creating terrorists by soliciting Muslim-Americans and appealing to them with schemes to aid ‘jihadists’. Recently, two American citizens were caught in a FBI sting. One, an Ivy-League educated physician, is charged with agreeing to provide medical care to wounded holy warriors in Saudi Arabia. The other, a famous jazz musician, is charged with agreeing to train jihadists in martial arts.
According to the Washington Times of June 1, the FBI began its sting in 2003, so it took two years of work and cajoling to manufacture the case against these two Americans.
What the FBI has done to Dr. R.A. Sabir and Tarik Shah was once known as entrapment. Judges would throw out entrapment cases, because crime was believed to require intent. If the intent was given to the accused by the police through enticement or threats, it was not regarded as criminal intent on the accused person’s part.
Unfortunately, “law and order” conservatives used fear of crime to “give our police more effective measures to clear criminals off our streets” and managed to eliminate the entrapment defense.