BNP returns to ‘Muslim heroin trade’ propaganda

Posted on by Bob Pitt

South Ribble councillors against BNP
South Ribble Councillors Caleb Tomlinson, Derek Forrest and Cameron Crook with BNP leaflets

Councillors in South Ribble say they are appalled and offended after a political activist personally targeted them to ask for their support for a campaign which allegedly blames Muslims for the heroin trade.

Tony Bamber has written to three councillors in the area and personally delivered a letter and leaflets under the auspices of the ‘Preston Pals’, which he says is in honour of the men of the 7th Battalion the ‘Loyals’.

Mr Bamber is also standing in next month’s Lancashire County Council elections, as a member of the British National Party (BNP) in Burnley, and local Labour councillors are furious that he is trying to spread what they say are ‘racist views’ in Leyland.

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UKIP stands by Rotherham local election candidate with BNP links

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Caven VinesThe UK Independence party’s local election candidate in Rotherham has had close links to the British National party and thinks there are too many Muslims in Britain – but having been alerted to his views and background, the party’s central command refused to condemn his remarks.

Caven Vines, 62, used to work closely with the BNP’s Rotherham organiser, Marlene Guest, in a campaign group called Council Watch. He has never been a BNP member but spent 2004-2006 as an independent councillor for the Rotherham West ward and is well known locally for his rightwing views.

Vines is standing in the Rawmarsh ward in a byelection triggered by the resignation of Labour’s Shaun Wright, who became South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner last year, despite his BNP connections. Wright’s wife, Lisa, is hoping to keep the seat in the family and is standing for Labour.

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Islamophobia? It’s just ‘a figment of liberals’ imaginations’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, that’s what Brendan O’Neill argues at the Telegraph. He asserts that there is no sign of any mass outbreak of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States following the Boston bombing. But then, O’Neill is part of a political tendency – formerly the ultra-left Revolutionary Communist Party but now organised around the right-wing libertarian online magazine spiked, whose adherents have long argued that Islamophobia is a myth.

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Boston bombings: western governments reaping what they sow?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

According to US newspapers, the sole surviving suspect says the west’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan were major motivations for doing what he did. And without any outside, foreign assistance, according to US officials quoted in the Washington Post.

This fact will be played down or more likely ignored very largely by the government in Washington.

But it is important because it is a direct admission from the suspect himself that politics and western foreign policy are the driving forces for him rather than Islam, al-Qaeda, foreign connections and all the rest of it currently being pointed at in so many quarters despite the patent lack of meaningful evidence.

Alex Thompson’s View, 24 April 2013

See also “Bomber motivated by religion? Media regurgitates government propaganda”, Loonwatch, 24 April 2013

Update:  See Glenn Greenwald, “The same motive for anti-US ‘terrorism’ is cited over and over”, Guardian, 24 April 2013

BNP election campaign in Lincolnshire centres on Skegness halal abattoir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Stop Halal Slaughter in Skegness

The British National Party has organised a number of protests against a halal abattoir in Skegness. It is now trying to exploit the issue in its Lincolnshire County Council election campaign. The BNP boasts that “only candidate Robert Ashton is mentioning the Halal Slaughterhouse in his Full Colour Tri Fold Election Communication”. It is, however, likely to require more than that to rescue the BNP from electoral humiliation.

Muslim garb gets Houston student singled out at festival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Worldfest

When a fire alarm went off Saturday at the Westchase Marriott during a seminar he was holding for Houston WorldFest, Hunter Todd decided to do some investigating.

After the 200 attendees filed back into the meeting room when the hotel gave an all-clear, Todd, the chief executive officer for the 46th annual WorldFest film festival, approached a woman sitting in the front of the room who was wearing traditional Muslim covering.

Todd asked to search her backpack. He said he was “super polite” to the woman, who opened the backpack. She had just a few water bottles inside. That’s when another attendee, University of Houston student Mike Rudd, confronted Todd and accused him of racially profiling the woman.

Rudd, a UH senior, described the woman as a fellow student at the university, where he is studying film and media production.

On his Facebook page, Rudd states he asked Todd why he had demanded to search the woman’s bag, and that Todd told him, “because she is Muslim and a suspicious character, now sit down.”

Houston Chronicle, 23 April 2013

See also “W[t]F? WorldFest founder/CEO Hunter Todd searches Fest attendee’s bag ‘because she is a Muslim'”, Houston Chronicle, 22 April 2013

CAIR decries inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric on Boston bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today decried the wave of inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric following the Boston Marathon bombings and the revelation that the suspects in the case are Muslim.

CAIR also noted that Americans of all faiths have rejected the call by a minority of extremists to stereotype Muslims and Islam.

While at least two anti-Muslim hate attacks were linked to the bombings, CAIR says it has not received any reports of violent bias-motivated incidents since the suspects were identified.

“We believe it is a positive sign that the vast majority of Americans have rejected the type of guilt by association advocated by extremist commentators seeking to exploit the tragic events in Boston to further their personal agendas,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “As a nation, we have learned to judge a person based on their actions, not on their faith or ethnicity.”

Awad said the recent spike in hate rhetoric comes in the wake of a coordinated long-term effort by Islamophobic activists and groups to demonize Islam and marginalize American Muslims.

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Baroness Warsi on Islamophobia and Muslim attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Baroness_WarsiThe government is “finally dealing” with Islamophobia in the UK, the minister for faith and communities has said in a personal film made for the BBC.

Baroness Warsi visited the Altrincham Islamic Cultural Centre and heard from trustee Amjad Latif about relations with the local community, and attacks on people and buildings.

The former Conservative Party chairman looked at problems relating to attacks and discrimination against ethnic communities, and recalled her description of the ‘dinner table test’.

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