Opposing demonstrations over plans for Muslim education centre in Shotton Colliery

Posted on by Bob Pitt

County Durham Unites Against RacismA former pit village in east Durham will be the scene of opposing demonstrations over plans for a Muslim education centre at the weekend.

County Durham Unites Against Racism said it will hold a peaceful counter-demonstration in Shotton Colliery, near Peterlee, to protest against the English Defence League (EDL) and North East Infidels (NEI) demonstration on Saturday (November 9).

It is the second time the EDL and NEI have demonstrated in the village over plans to open a Muslim education centre. In December last year about 200 EDL supporters converged on Shotton Colliery to protest plans by local businessman, Kaiser Choudry’s to turn a former The Melrose Arms pub into a Muslim education centre.

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Dispatch International editors visit UK for a chat with Lennon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen Lennon with Hedegaard and Carlqvist
Dispatch International co-editors Lars Hedegaard and Ingrid Carlqvist in London with ex-EDL leader Stephen Lennon

Following the humiliating failure of their recent efforts to organise a Scandinavian speaking tour for the English Defence League leadership, Lars Hedegaard and Ingrid Carlqvist, co-editors of the notorious “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International, have travelled to the UK to talk to Stephen Lennon. The results of their discussions with the former head of the EDL can be found here and here.

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Volusia School Board meeting cancelled after threats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Volusia school textbook protest

Volusia school textbook counter-protest

A Volusia County School Board meeting where protesters planned to raise objections to the way a high school history textbook portrays Islam was canceled before it started Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Justice passed along information that raised “substantial safety concerns” among school officials.

The announcement came as about 75 demonstrators gathered outside the School Board office, engaging at times in heated debates about how public school textbooks should deal with religion.

That debate will now be left to another yet-to-be-determined day when the School Board will meet with additional security measures in place, according to a statement released late Tuesday by district spokeswoman Nancy Wait. Longtime board observers could not remember another time when a meeting was canceled over security issues.

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Russia’s march toward ruin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nationalist demonstrator Moscow November 2013The Russian March, a yearly demonstration of Russian nationalist groups, was held Monday in Moscow and in 100 other cities across the country. Never before has this march been held amid so much xenophobia and intolerance in Russian society. Never before have members of the ruling elite, including members of the State Duma and the Kremlin, so publicly and openly made anti-­migrant and xenophobic statements. Not surprisingly, 40 percent of Russians now say they support holding the Russian March, according to a recent poll by the Levada Center.

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Islamophobia has surged in Quebec since Charter proposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim Council of Montreal press conference

Islamophobia has surged in Quebec since the introduction of the proposed Charter of Quebec Values, the Muslim Council of Montreal warned Tuesday, with an alarming rise in attacks, specifically against Muslim women.

Muslims made 117 complaints of verbal or physical abuse to a local anti-Islamophobia group between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, compared to a total of 25 complaints (or 3.5 complaints per month on average) in the nine-month period of January to September 2013.

This spike coincides with the kick-off of the debate on the Parti Québécois government’s proposed charter of values, which proposes to prevent public servants from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols, including the hijab and niqab.

“Premier Marois’s introduction of the charter of values has unleashed an alarming number of xenophobic and Islamaphobic attacks,” the council’s president, Salam Elmenyawi, told a press conference.

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Thousands join nationalist rally in Moscow

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Moscow anti-mosque banner
Protestors carrying a banner with the slogan ‘Today a Mosque – tomorrow Jihad’

Several thousand Russian nationalists rallied Monday in Moscow, venting against the migrants they accuse of pushing up the crime rate and taking their jobs.

The protest took place on Unity Day, a national holiday established in 2005 to replace commemorations of the Bolshevik Revolution. Many demonstrators carried Russian imperial flags. One group displayed a banner reading “Young People Against Tolerance.”

Animosity is strong among nationalists against migrants from the former Soviet Central Asian republics and against non-Slavs from the largely Muslim Russian Caucasus region. Central Asian migrants are widely employed in big cities in construction and do other low-paid jobs that Russians are not eager to do.

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Racist vandals graffiti Queensland mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cairns mosque graffiti

A mosque in Cairns in far north Queensland has been targeted by vandals. The front of the Cairns North mosque was sprayed with large red letters early yesterday, calling for the worshippers to “integrate” or return to their “homelands”.

Imam Abdul Aziz Mohammed, 81, says he has been involved with the Cairns community for decades and cannot do any more to integrate.

“I’ve lived here in Cairns all my life and this is the first time we’ve ever seen any physical opposition to our religion and basically our family,” he said. “My family’s been here since 1900 and I was shocked, to say the least.”

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Hundreds prepare protest against Islam chapter in Florida school textbook

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Florida World History textbookVOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Hundreds of people in Volusia County are preparing a protest against a textbook that’s in public schools across Florida.

They believe a world history book dedicates too much material to Islam and doesn’t focus equally on Christianity and other religions. Some protest organizers want students to go home and tear the section on Islam out of their textbooks.

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