An interest-free housing project aimed at the Muslim community and boasting 100 per cent halal housing has sparked a major row, with critics labelling it a discriminatory plan that could lead to a Muslim enclave.
New Jersey: Islamic Society attorney claims discrimination by planning board in mosque plan
The lawyer for a Somerset County Islamic organization believes that the township Planning Board is discriminating against his clients for wanting to build a mosque in the Liberty Corner section of Bernards.
Vincent T. Bisogno, attorney for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, said the board increased the parking requirement to 110 spaces despite a zoning ordinance suggesting a house of worship of this size be required to have 50 spaces. “Is it (the ordinance) only for Christians?” Bisogno asked during a board meeting Tuesday night.
Shots fired at Ismaili Jamatkhana in Georgia
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Fayette County Sheriff investigators are trying to find out who took shots at a Muslim house of prayer early Tuesday morning. Deputies were alerted when an alarm went off in the Ismaili Jamatkhana on Flat Creek Trail at 2:08 a.m.
“A responding Deputy Sheriff arrived on the scene and located the appearance of gunshots to the building,” said Sheriff Barry Babb.
Deputies found four windows on the back side of the building shattered by gunfire. No one was in the building when it happened.
Farida Nurani, a spokesperson for the Jamatkhana, said the building is a house of prayer and community center. Nurani said security measures are being taken and guards will be at the building 24 hours.
Geller and Spencer OK with passport fraud
Illegal immigrant Stephen Lennon speaking at Geller and Spencer’s New York conference
Over at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, Richard Bartholomew examines the responses by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to the conviction of English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon on a charge of passport fraud.
It seems that these self-styled defenders of the western legal system against the supposed encroachments of Sharia law can’t even bring themselves to condemn the commission of this serious criminal offence by the man they have hailed as the leader of the British counterjihadist movement.
In addition, of course, Geller and Spencer still haven’t provided us with an explanation of how Lennon could have arrived in New York on a false passport them knowing. Until they do so, the suspicion will remain that they actively co-operated with him in securing his illegal entry to the US so he could attend their conference.
Which, if I understand US law correctly, is a criminal offence there too.
New Yorkers rally against ‘climate of hostility’ that led to killing of Sunando Sen
NEW YORK — A coalition of advocacy groups and political leaders held a rally on Tuesday linking the subway pushing death of a South Asian man to a broader anti-Muslim environment in New York City – inflamed, they said, by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York City Police Department.
“When our own government, our own police, our own institutions, our own media continue to engage in racial profiling or painting communities as suspect, we cannot expect the results to be any different than what they are right now,” said Fahd Ahmed, legal and policy director for the South Asian advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving.
The Queens rally centered around the death of Sunando Sen, a Hindu immigrant from India who was crushed to his death by a subway train after 31-year-old Erika Menendez allegedly pushed him on Dec. 27. Menendez, who has a history of mental problems, told investigators she shoved Sen because she thought he was Muslim and “I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers,” police said.
Settlers attack the Mosque of the Prophet Daud in Jerusalem
For the second time in two weeks, Israeli settlers stormed the historical Mosque of the Prophet Daud in Jerusalem, and they broke the ceramic and marble tiles covering three walls. The tiles date back to the 17th century.
Fox News promotes Islamophobic film
News Hounds reports that Fox News’ latest contribution to the incitement of Islamophobia is its promotion of an Islamophobic documentary film called Jihad in America: The Grand Deception.
The film is produced by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which is headed by Steve Emerson (listed in Fear Inc. as one of the “leading lights of the Islamophobia network“). It claims to expose:
“the covert structure and growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist groups, masquerading under the false moniker of being apolitical religious groups or civil rights groups in the United States, specifically how they are infiltrating or intimidating major societal institutions from Congress to Hollywood, from the mainstream news media to federal law enforcement, from the publishing industry to museums”.
The parallels between this sort of anti-Muslim scaremongering and classic antisemitic conspiracy theories scarcely need underlining. Yet that didn’t prevent Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (who had earlier provided a boost to the demented David Horowitz) from giving credence to the claims in Jihad in America, along with a sympathetic interview with Steve Emerson himself (the self-proclaimed expert on terrorism who, you may recall, assured everyone that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was probably carried out by “Middle Eastern terrorists”).
Halting anti-Muslim violence
Many of the recent attacks in the US have taken place shortly after well-publicised anti-Muslim hate speeches, argues Erik Love. Yet “most of these attacks have been dismissed as the work of mentally ill individuals, rather than symptoms of larger social problems”.
Hijab will not be permitted in Norwegian police force, says minister
Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik concludes that the hijab will not become part of the Norwegian police uniform or be used in the court system in the near future.
Despite the Norwegian Faith and Ethics Policy Committee’s recommendation to make the hijab legal to wear for police officers and judges while at work, Tajik rejected the committee’s proposal in Parliament Monday.
A majority of 12 out of 15 members of the committee suggested to permit the use of hijab in the Norwegian police force and among judges, but according to Tajik no changes wil be made to the current ban in the near future.
See also “Norway minister nixes police hijab”, Press TV, 8 January 2013
German bigotry shifting from race to religion
A new study warns that Islamophobia in Germany is becoming culturally acceptable, as bigotry leaves the confines of ethnicity and moves towards religious bias against Muslims.
“It’s no longer ‘the Turks’ but ‘the Muslims’,” Wilhelm Heitmeyer, head of the institute for research of interdisciplinary conflict and violence at Bielefeld University told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Monday. Research has led him to be concerned general xenophobia had given way to a growing rejection of Islam in Germany.