Angus Mackinnon examines the rise in discrimination against Muslims in France, justified as a defence of laïcité.
‘Tommy’ acquires another useful idiot
Just about everyone now has come to the conclusion that former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon’s supposed break with extremism is nothing of the sort. Even mad Maryam Namazie takes the view that “this is all a publicity stunt for Tommy to reinvent himself into a more palatable persona without any lasting change in his politics”.
Apart from the charlatans at Quilliam who “facilitated” Lennon’s shift from street thuggery to a more presentable form of the same Islamophobia, David Toube (“Alan A”) and Sarah Annes Brown of Harry’s Place are among the few commentators stupid and self-deluded enough to have accepted Lennon’s conversion as good coin. And now they have been joined by Lejla Kurić at Left Foot Forward (edited by James Bloodworth, who shares not a little of Lennon’s hostility towards Islam).
Police called to school protest over Islam workshop
The school at the centre of a storm over a religious workshop was forced to abandon the trip for pupils at the eleventh hour after placard-waving protests which saw the police called.
Officers have been at Littleton Green Community School in Cannock every day since Friday because of parents’ fury which sparked yesterday’s demonstration at the school gates.
The 45-strong rally followed uproar last week when parents were warned their children would have a racial discrimination note recorded against them if they failed to attend the workshop. Head of the Huntington primary school Lynn Small later apologised for her comments and withdrew the threat.
The trip to Staffordshire University for around 100 children to learn about Islam was due to have taken place yesterday. But it was postponed by education chiefs over fears yesterday’s lunchtime protest at the school in Colliers Way may get out of hand.
Man guilty of mosque firebombs role
A 25-year-old man has been found guilty of helping two former soldiers fire-bomb a mosque in Grimsby as a reprisal for the killing of soldier Lee Rigby.
Stuart Harness, 34, and Gavin Humphries, 37, have already admitted throwing four petrol bombs at the Grimsby Islamic Cultural Centre four days after the murder of Fusilier Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks in south east London in May. The pair were caught on CCTV making the bombs and then throwing them at the mosque doors as terrified worshippers were trapped inside.
Daniel Cressey was found guilty on Thursday by a jury at Grimsby Crown Court of aiding and abetting Harness and Humphries. Cressey drove his friends the short distance from Harness’s home in Dixon Avenue in the town to the mosque but did not take part in the arson attack. All three men will be sentenced at Hull Crown Court on December 20.
Judge Mark Bury remanded Cressey, of New Holland, North Lincolnshire, in custody and told him a prison sentence was inevitable. Harness and Humphries, both of Dixon Avenue, Grimsby, are also in custody.
Golden Dawn, government clash over mosque
After yet another attack on government plans to construct a mosque in central Athens, Greece’s neofascist Golden Dawn party has asked for a national vote on the issue.
Speaking in Parliament Thursday, Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panayiotaros said that plans to build a place of worship for Greece’s Muslim community were a “provocation” for Greeks, saying that the project should be put to a national referendum.
Panayiotaros wrapped up his comments shouting “fire and axe to those who bow down,” quoting a phrase from a letter written by Theodoros Kolokotronis, a leader of Greece’s War of Independence against the Ottomans.
Ontario police make arrests in post 9/11 hate crimes
Hamilton, Ont., Police have arrested three men for alleged hate crimes committed in the days after 9/11.
On Sept. 15, 2001, the large front window of the Hamilton Mountain Mosque was damaged and the entire interior of the Hindu Samaj Temple was gutted in an arson.
Police said the case will be presented as a hate crime, given that the alleged offences took place only four days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the U.S.
EDL supporter jailed for defacing war memorial
A 21-year-old man who scrawled “Lee Rigby’s killers should hang”, on the RAF Bomber Command War Memorial in London has been jailed for 12 weeks.
Daniel Smith admitted causing two counts of criminal damage on June 5, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Smith, from Grecian Street North, Salford, Greater Manchester, said he did not realise it was a war memorial.
District Judge Quentin Purdy told him: “There are those who are deeply offended by what you chose to do.” He added some people would “wish you considerable ill, I am sure, simply because you chose to do it”.
Smith’s defence counsel, Colleen Gildernew, told an earlier hearing he was “disgusted with himself” over the act.
He had also daubed “EDL” and a swear word on the memorial in Green Park.
Maryam Namazie calls for ban on niqab … with assistance of Channel 4
For reasons best known to themselves, the producers of Channel 4’s 4thought.tv slot decided to give Maryam Namazie a platform to demand a ban on the niqab. You can watch it here.
Namazie was allowed to present herself as an ordinary ex-Muslim who turned against the niqab as a result of her experiences in Iran (where, in fact, there is no legal enforcement of the face-veil). There was no indication that Namazie is a leading figure in the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, a crazed far-left sect with a long history of Islamophobia.
French veil law: Muslim woman’s challenge in Strasbourg
A young Muslim woman is challenging France’s full-face veil ban at the European Court of Human Rights, based in the French city of Strasbourg. The woman argues that the niqab, and the burka body covering, accord with her “religious faith, culture and personal convictions”. She denies being under any pressure from her family to wear them.
A leading French feminist group has urged the ECHR to uphold the ban, arguing that it liberates women. “The full-face veil, by literally burying the body and the face, constitutes a true deletion of the woman as an individual in public,” the head of the International League for Women’s Rights, Annie Sugier, said in a letter to the court.
Anti-Islam activist Pam Geller says Pope Francis ‘sanctions savagery’
Anti-Islam activist and blogger Pamela Geller lashed out at Pope Francis on Tuesday, claiming he condoned violence against Christians.
“At a time when Christianity worldwide is under siege by Islamic jihadists, the leader of the Catholic Church claims that the quran teaches non-violence. As Christians across the Muslim world live in abject terror and fear kidnapping, rape and slaughter to the bloodcurdling cries of ‘Allahu akbar,’ the pope gives papal sanction to the savage,” she wrote at her blog.