Liberal leader defends candidate’s burqa comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has confessed to finding the burqa “confronting” while defending Liberal candidate Ray King for describing the Islamic attire as a “sign of oppression”.

Asked whether he supported the statements by Mr King, who drew a link between the burqa and criminality at a fund-raiser, Mr Abbott admitted he found it “a very confronting attire. “Frankly, it’s not the sort of attire that I would like to see widespread in our streets,” Mr Abbott told reporters on Saturday, while campaigning in Queensland.

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Legal threat by Tower Hamlets Mayor in bid to ban planned EDL march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Legal action has been threatened in a bid to challenge the Metropolitan Police’s failure to ban far right group the English Defence League (EDL) from marching through east London next weekend. Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s office tonight confirmed the last ditch attempt to stop the march from going ahead as planned next Saturday (September 7).

Mayor Lutfur Rahman said: “I’m deeply disappointed that the police and the home secretary have failed to act, despite my formally requesting them to do so. Clearly they are not on the same page as the scores of prominent national and local figures who joined me in calling for a ban. I call upon them to see sense, but in the absence of an adequate response I intend to take this matter to the High Court.”

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SRtRC interviews Daniel Trilling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobia FilmThe anti-racist educational charity Show Racism the Red Card has interviewed Daniel Trilling, assistant editor of the New Statesman and author of Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right.

The interview has been published in three parts (the first two can be read here and here) and in the third part (here) Trilling addresses the issue of Islamophobia:

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Scotland Yard negotiating terms of planned EDL Tower Hamlets march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scotland Yard is in negotiations with far right group the English Defence League (EDL) and opposition campaigners amid calls for a ban on next weekend’s planned demonstration. The Met said plans for how to police the march, due to take place next Saturday (September 7) are still in their “formative stages”.

Dozens of community leaders, MPs and faith groups signed a letter to home secretary Theresa May this month calling for a ban on the event. But a Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Some negotiations are ongoing with the organisers, and with those people opposed to it.” A final decision on the demonstration is due to be taken early next week, he added. If the Met decides to ban the march, Scotland Yard must apply to the Home Office for approval.

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Muslim teens say cops ripped off their hijabs during brutal Bronx arrest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Khalia Wilson and Lamis ChapmanTwo Muslim teenage sisters say the NYPD brutalized them and ripped off their hijabs after they were ordered to leave a Bronx park Monday night. In what appears to be an exclusive report, the Daily News says that Lamis Chapman, 12, and Khalia Wilson, 14, were thrown to the ground and had their head scarves ripped off by the officers at the Lester Patterson Houses in Mott Haven. Khalia says she was put in a choke-hold, telling the tabloid, “They said they asked for ID. I didn’t hear them.”

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Cambridge Liberal Democrats reject accusations against leading Muslim member

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salah Al BanderA leading Liberal Democrat whose writings about a former Muslim are the subject of an online campaign has said he “totally refutes” the allegations against him.

Hundreds of people have signed an online petition condemning Salah Al Bander, who represented Trumpington on Cambridge City Council until 2011, following several posts on the Sudanese Online website about Nahla Mahmoud.

Ms Mahmoud, who like Dr Al Bander is of Sudanese heritage, is an atheist who criticised her upbringing under sharia law and became a leading figure in a group called the British Council of Ex-Muslims. She said she faced intimidation after she was criticised in posts by Dr Al Bander, which were picked up in media and mosques in Sudan. Afterwards, her brother was allegedly attacked.

But Dr Al Bander said he had been “utterly misrepresented”.

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Sydney: Parliamentary candidate attacks Muslim women who wear veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ray KingA Liberal candidate in a western Sydney electorate where nearly half of voters were born overseas used his campaign launch to urge an end to Muslim women wearing the burqa, drawing a link between the Islamic tradition and criminality.

Ray King, a former Liverpool police commander standing against Treasurer Chris Bowen in McMahon, claimed the burqa was a “sign of oppression”, according to one attendee.

The comments were made in front of guests including the disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson, 2UE broadcaster Jason Morrison and the Assistant NSW Police Commissioner for south-west Sydney, Frank Mennilli.

Also present at the $300-a-head fund-raiser at Candelori’s Restaurant in Smithfield were Liberal Senator Marise Payne, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly and two members of the Coalition state government, Stuart Ayres and Andrew Rohan.

Mr King’s comments alarmed some Liberal guests as they echoed strident public statements he had made during his policing career, including that migrants should be stripped of welfare to force them to “get off their backside”.

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Another EDL supporter forgets he’s not supposed to be racist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Eltham garage racist abuse

Police have released CCTV images following a racist outburst in an Eltham petrol station where a man chanted “EDL” to a black couple.

The white suspect shouted at a black man and woman who were queuing at the BP petrol station in Crown Woods Way before demanding to know their nationality on May 27 around 10.50pm. The couple left the shop shortly afterwards but one of them returned to the garage to confront the suspect and a minor altercation took place.

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