British MPs regret discrimination against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Senior British parliamentarians admitted anti-terrorism laws are being used “disproportionately” against Muslims, as the community members feel increasing persecuted after a wave of arrests and hostile media campaign.

The Labour peer Lord Judd, a committee member, said that the arrests of a dozen young men on Tuesday, August 3, underlined fears that anti-terrorism legislation of 2001 discriminated against Muslims, The Independent reported on Thursday, August 5.

“That is a worrying situation in terms of the confidence of Islamic citizens in Britain that they are not all under suspicion,” Judd told the BBC.

This came as the Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights warned in a statement that the Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows the indefinite detention of foreign nationals without trial, could have a “corrosive” long-term effect on human rights in Britain.

There was “discrimination inherent” in the Act, said the committee, saying that the government was forced to derogate – or opt out – of its international human rights obligations.

“We also note there is mounting evidence the powers under the Terrorism Act [of 2000] are being used disproportionately against members of the Muslim community,” it added.

Islam Online, 5 August 2004

No, we don’t want to conquer the world

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The ferocity of recent attacks on Muslims and Islam in the mainstream British media has led many to question what is driving these attempts to incite hatred and fear of our community. Anyone reading the British press over the past few weeks might be excused for imagining that the country is threatened by hordes of Muslims living within its borders, determined to subvert British values and convert its people to Islam, by hook or by crook.”

Anas Altikriti in the Guardian, 5 August 2004

UK Muslims react to terror raids

Posted on by Eddie Truman

As police continue to detain a dozen young men arrested in anti-terrorism raids across the UK, Britain’s Muslim community has reacted with dismay.

Detaining the men, all of Asian origin, has prompted complaints in some Muslim circles that they are being unfairly singled out.

Fewer than one in five of the more than 500 people – most of them Muslim – arrested under terrorism laws since September 11, 2001 have been charged with a terrorist offence, according to government figures.

BBC News, 4 August 2004

Church leader criticises Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A religious leader from Norwich was today widely condemned after he branded the Islamic faith “evil”.

Rev Alan Clifford, pastor of the Norwich Reformed Church, waded into the controversy surrounding anti-Muslim remarks made by the British National Party in an undercover BBC documentary.

Today, religious and race leaders in Norwich condemned his backing of claims that Islam is “a monster in our midst”.

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Islamists and Democracy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Qaradawi – an al-Jazeera regular who recently turned down the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood because he felt he could be more influential as an independent thinker – has spent the last thirty years presenting a sustained and coherent argument for a moderate approach to Islamism. He has routinely and consistently denounced terrorism and intellectual extremism.”

Abu Aardvark replies to Lee Smith, outlining the views of Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other advocates of democratic Islamism: here.

‘Islam’s seeds of self-destruction’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Any religion that wants to survive goes through change even if it means, as in the case of Christianity’s Reformation, a period of warfare and division. Once there was the Roman Church. Then there was the Roman and Eastern Church. Then, following the Reformation, there were numerous interpretations of Christianity spawning Protestantism’s diversity of churches.

“Judaism, the rock on which both Christianity and Islam is built, is over 3.5 thousand years old. It has survived because its spiritual leaders found ways for it to adapt to changing times. In each generation, Jews turned to the wisest among them to ask what adaptations were acceptable and these were assimilated into their lives allowing them to live in many different cultures and nations.

“Islam, however, leaves no room for real change. A modern Muslim must either cast a blind eye to its many strictures or must yield, willingly or not, to laws that are applicable to the seventh century, but which conflict with life in the twenty-first. It has produced a conflict being violently played out in nations throughout the Middle East where Islam has failed to advance freedom, enlightenment, equality, human rights, and tolerance.”

Alan Caruba at Progressive Conservative, 29 July 2004

Attacks on Islamic institutes are baseless – MAB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“British Muslims are beginning to become accustomed to attacks on their most beloved institutions. Over the last year, they’ve seen right-wing and Zionist assaults on their scholars (Shaikh Qaradawi), their charities (Interpal), their religion itself, and their organisations and leading individuals.”

The Muslim Association of Britain replies to the Times report “British Islam colleges ‘link to terrorism’”.

MAB press release, 29 July 2004

British Islam colleges ‘link to terrorism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Two British universities have given their approval to a pair of Islamic colleges with close links to fundamentalist scholars and political movements…. Tim Collins, the Shadow Education Secretary, said he was extremely concerned about the colleges. ‘There needs to be an urgent investigation by the Charity Commission, the Department of Education and the Home Office into the exact nature of these institutions, how they came to be sited in the UK and whe-ther their presence threatens peaceful community relations in this country,’ he said. ”

The Times, 29 July 2004

The triumph of the East

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spectator Muslims are Coming“There’s no plot, says Anthony Browne: Islam really does want to conquer the world.”

So reads the standfirst to Browne’s Spectator article.

The article concludes: “In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West.”

Spectator, 24 July 2004