Jilbab ruling is a bitter defeat for British beliefs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jilbab ruling is a bitter defeat for British beliefs

Letter in the Daily Express, 4 March 2004

The Appeal Court ruling may be a victory for Miss Begum, but it is a defeat for the rest of us.

Speaking after the Appeal Court’s decision was announced, Miss Begum said that it was a landmark victory (paid for by the taxpayer, of course) and would have profound consequences – it most certainly will.

She then went on to talk of the bigotry and intolerance she had suffered here.

If Miss Begum wants to know what real bigotry and intolerance are, she should go and live in one of the Muslim states where Sharia law prevails. Why are we bending over backwards to accommodate the Muslim community, yet making it more and more difficult for non-Muslims here to express their religious or national beliefs?

So-called ‘victories’ like that being celebrated by Miss Begum do nothing to foster tolerance – precisely the opposite in fact.

Can the day be far away when the son or daughter of naturist parents petitions the Court of Appeal for the right to go to school naked?

I have not heard anyone express anything but incredulity, and in most cases outrage, at the decision to allow this young lady to defy her school authorities.

Robert Readman, Bournemouth, Dorset

Shabina Begum case: a victory for fanaticism, says Richard Littlejohn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jilbab: A victory for fanaticism

Human rights was the Blairs’ pension plan long before they got into property speculation

By Richard Littlejohn

The Sun, 4 March 2005

If schoolgirl Shabina Begum actually wrote the speech she delivered on the steps of the Appeal Court yesterday then clearly her education hasn’t suffered from being refused permission to turn up for class dressed from head to toe in Islamic costume.

“The decision of Denbigh High School to prevent my adherence to my religion cannot unfortunately be viewed merely as a local decision taken in isolation. Rather it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post-9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the war on terror.”

Not bad for a 16-year-old. I wonder if her brief helped her draft it.

Miss Begum was speaking after winning a landmark case against the school, which sent her home because she insisted on wearing Muslim robes straight out of the Taliban catalogue instead of the approved uniform.

Not that she was being asked to parade around the playground in a St Trinian’s-style gymslip and pigtails. The school has a dress code which accommodates religious sensibilities and is perfectly acceptable to parents and pupils alike. The headmistress of Denbigh is herself a Muslim, as are 79 per cent of her pupils. Girls are allowed to dress modestly in skirt, trousers and a headscarf.

But that’s not good enough for the Islamic fundamentalists who want to turn Britain into a Stone Age theocracy.

This ruling was a victory for fanaticism. Muslim agitators have already been picketing the school trying to force other girls to comply with their own extreme ideas of how young women should dress.

What about the rights of the rest of society?

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Terror threat from ‘very many’ Muslim men, says Met chief

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror threat from ‘very many’ Muslim men, says Met chief

By John Steele, Home Affairs Correspondent

Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2005

Britain faces a potential terrorist threat from “very many” Muslim men who returned to Britain after spending time in training camps in Afghanistan, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said yesterday.

Sir Ian Blair, whose force, with MI5, leads anti-terrorism work in Britain, was asked if he supported the assertion of the Prime Minister earlier this week that there were “several hundred people in the UK plotting terror attacks”.

The commissioner told LBC radio in London: “Yes, I am aware of the fact that there are very many people who came back from the camps in Afghanistan and who are therefore potentially a threat to the United Kingdom.

“And I agree with the Prime Minister’s assessment, on that basis, that there are hundreds of people who came back from the camps and are now in the United Kingdom, and that is a very dangerous issue for us all.”

Scotland Yard sources made clear Sir Ian was referring to training camps run by al-Qa’eda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which were destroyed in the military campaign by American and British forces after the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001.

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Police chief backs Blears over Muslim searches

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has backed a minister’s controversial comments that Muslims should accept that they will be stopped and searched by police.

Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, said on Tuesday that Muslims should accept as a “reality” that they would be targeted by police under the Government’s anti-terror measures. Yesterday Sir Ian Blair said he supported Ms Blears, and also supported the assessment of Tony Blair that that there were “hundreds” of people in Britain plotting to commit terrorist acts.

Asked if he agreed with Ms Blears’ comments, Sir Ian said: “I do actually: I think Hazel’s right to say it. The terrorism regulations around stop and search do not require individual suspicion, they are much more akin to searches around an airport.”

Independent, 4 March 2005

Threats push hijab-clad Belgian to resign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A hijab-clad Muslim woman in Belgium was forced to quit her job after no longer being able to stand up to death threats from a fundamentalist group.

“I have decided to quit, to let it drop, to take some time off so that things calm down,” said 31-year-old Naimi Amzil, according to Agence France Presse (AFP) Thursday, March 3.

Amzil, of a Moroccan origin, has been receiving death threats for no reasons just because she is a Muslim and wears hijab.

The latest in a series of death threats was a letter containing two bullets signed by an extremist group calling itself “New Free Flanders”. The fundamentalist group said that an execution was being prepared, threatening to poison produce made at the delicatessen factory in west Flanders where she worked.

Amzil and her employer Rick Remmery, who runs a successful worldwide famous seafood firm based in western Belgium, hit the newsstands after they were received by Belgian King Albert II following their refusal to bow to death threats against them.

The tragic chain of events became known last November when a group calling itself “New Free Flanders”, demanded that Remmery sack 31-year-old Amzil if she insists on wearing hijab, accusing him of being “a bad Belgian who collaborates with Muslims.” The group threatened Remmery and his family in case of noncompliance.

Amzil offered to take off her hijab during working hours or resign, but a brave Remmery shrugged off both options.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said he was disappointed at Amzil’s resignation, vowing to bring those behind the threats to justice. “I am shocked. We will do everything we can to find those behind this.” Similar reactions were expressed by other Belgian officials.

Belgian Equal Opportunities Minister, Christian Dupont, stressed that “it is a scandal that the person making these threats remains comfortably at home.” “It is unacceptable and inhuman that a worker who wears a headscarf… should be driven to resign after a series of threats,” said Dupont.

IslamOnline, 4 March 2005

Daniel Pipes backs Le Pen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel Pipes, considered by many Muslims to be America’s leading Islamophobe, recently expressed support for French far-right racist Jean-Marie Le Pen. On his web site, Pipes said Le Pen’s extremist views “represent an important outlook in the national debate over immigration and Islam“.

An appeals court in France recently upheld Le Pen’s conviction for inciting anti-Muslim hatred in a newspaper interview. Le Pen has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times in the past.

See: Far-right leader’s conviction upheld

CAIR news report, 4 March 2004

Fascists denounce ‘another concession to Sharia demands’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… this episode appears to have been a well orchestrated case of religious extremism, aided and abetted by powerful and well-connected Establishment figures, using the requirements of Sharia law to drive a coach and horses through our institutional liberal western values and make a mockery out of our societal rules and regulations.”

The British National Party assesses the Shabina Begum case.

BNP news article, 3 March 2005

Rosie Kane MSP: Muslims targeted by anti-terror legislation

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Motion from SSP to Scottish Parliament: “That the Parliament condemns the remarks of the Home Office minister, Hazel Blears.” … “believes that the targeting of Muslims by the security services will be done on a racist basis and abhors the fact that a Labour government elected with the support of substantial sections of Muslim communities should now be targeting those communities as if they were ‘the enemy within’.”

*S2M-2519 Rosie Kane: Muslims Targeted by Anti-Terror Legislation—That the Parliament condemns the remarks of the Home Office minister, Hazel Blears, to the Home Affairs Select Committee, and widely reported in the press, in relation to counter-terrorism powers that “some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community” and that “the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam”; regards these remarks as directly associating our Muslim communities with terrorism; believes that they will be used by racists and far-right thugs as a green light to attack Muslims and will result in an increase in racist attacks; believes that the targeting of Muslims by the security services will be done on a racist basis and abhors the fact that a Labour government elected with the support of substantial sections of Muslim communities should now be targeting those communities as if they were “the enemy within”, and further notes that the last terrorist outrage committed in the United Kingdom was by a far-right racist against the lesbian and gay community.

Hazel Blears says police will target Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims can expect the police to target them, minister says 

By Richard Ford and Stewart Tendler

The Times, 2 March 2005

BRITAIN’S Counter-Terrorism Minister warned the Muslim community last night that it must face the reality of being targeted by the police because of the threat from an extreme form of Islam.

Hazel Blears provoked anger from Muslim leaders and the National Black Police Association (NPBA) for her “intemperate” comments. They said her statements could only exacerbate feelings among law-abiding Muslims that they were being unfairly targeted by police and intelligence services.

Ms Blears’s comments appear to conflict with the commitment by the police not to target suspects because of their race, a key recommendation of the 1999 inquiry by Sir William Macpherson into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager.

She said yesterday that Britain’s 1.5 million Muslims should accept as a reality that people of Islamic appearance are more likely to be stopped and searched.

“At the moment the threat is more likely to come from those associated with a most extreme form of Islam or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she told MPs.

“It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community. There is no getting away from the fact.”

Ms Blears made her comments when she gave evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into terrorism and the effects that counter-terrorism measures have on community relations.

She said later that because the current threat came from people masquerading as Islamists, police would have that in mind when using stop-and-search powers. “That is the reality. I do not think it should go unsaid.”

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