BBC refuses to screen play about Islamic threat to freedom of speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, that’s the headline to an article in the Daily Telegraph. The play is the theatre-dance piece Can We Talk About This?, currently being performed at the National Theatre, which reportedly treats Ray Honeyford as a legitimate critic of multiculturalism and Geert Wilders as a hero of free speech.

If the BBC had indeed refused to screen a play which promoted racists and Islamophobes like Honeyford and Wilders, they would certainly have a point. But there is no evidence to suggest that the play was even being considered for broadcast.

The Telegraph report quotes a spokesperson for BBC director-general Mark Thompson as stating: “We are currently working with the National on various ideas. There are currently no plans to broadcast Can We Talk About This?, but this is not due to the play’s content or themes.”

Still, no point letting the facts get in the way of another scaremongering headline about “how Islam is curtailing freedom of speech”, as the Telegraph puts it, is there?

Update:  Predictably, over at Jihad Watch Robert Spencer denounces “more dhimmitude from the BBC”.

Mail changes inaccurate headline about Muslims and honour violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tabloid Watch examines the Daily Mail‘s shock-horror headline “More than two thirds of young British Muslims believe ‘honour’ violence is acceptable, survey reveals”, which misreported the findings of a ComRes opinion poll.

This headline was subsequently replaced with “‘Honour’ violence is acceptable, say one in five young British Asians”. However, as Tabloid Watch points out and as we noted at the time, even that figure is based on a one-sided interpretation of the poll.

Tabloid Watch also observes that the Mail‘s change of headline “came too late, however, to stop their original headline being repeated on countless anti-Islam forums and blogs”.

Furthermore: “The day after MailOnline wrongly claimed ‘two thirds of young British Muslims believe ‘honour’ violence is acceptable’ it won Newspaper Website of the Year at the Press Awards.”

Answering halal hysteria in Quebec

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As the Parti Quebecois conflates imagined Islamist plots with feigned concerns for animal welfare, I wonder if Chicken Little is on the separatist payroll. The latest act in Quebec’s Chronicles of Xenophobia takes us to the slaughterhouse, where the PQ claims all chickens are slaughtered under Islamic halal practice. The risk is twofold: (i) non-Muslim Quebecers will unwittingly eat halal meat; and (ii) halal slaughter practices are inhumane….

Quebec politicians seem to be ripping pages from France’s playbook lately; first toying with hijab bans and now exposing the lurking threat of halal meat. They justify their actions by claiming that precious values are at stake…. While scapegoating Muslims is de rigueur among right-wingers, it seems that the left-leaning PQ is blazing a new trail by marching lockstep with the likes of Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Tea Party and Harper’s Conservatives.

Ziyaad Mia responds to the PQ’s attempt to whip up halal hysteria.

Vancouver Sun, 27 March 2012

Islamic bookstore sparks controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

TORONTO — Shamim Ahmad has run his Islamic bookstore for 20 years in the popular East York neighbourhood of Little India. A green and white sign advertises Islamic books and souvenirs.

This quiet store is the site of a Canada-wide uproar because it sold a copy of “A gift for the Muslim couple.” The book was written by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, an Islamic scholar from the late 19th century who passed away in 1943.

“I didn’t read the book, I only bought because of the title,” Ahmad said. “It’s a hundred-year-old book and I don’t know what was inside.”

Continue reading →

Zuhdi Jasser appointed to US Commission on International Religious Freedom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zuhdi JasserOne of two new members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has Muslim civil rights groups crying foul.

Zuhdi Jasser, who lauded a controversial New York City police surveillance program that targeted Muslims and helped lead the opposition to an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, has been appointed to the commission, which advises the president, Congress and State Department on religious rights abuses internationally.

“It would have been better to appoint someone who has some measure of credibility with Muslim Americans,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “He has long been viewed by American Muslims and the colleagues in the civil liberties community as a mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia.”

Religion News Service, 27 March 2012

Update:  You can sign the petition “Zuhdi Jasser Does Not Belong on the USCIRF” here.

FOIA documents show FBI using ‘Mosque Outreach’ for intelligence gathering

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ACLUFor several years, the FBI’s San Francisco office conducted a “Mosque Outreach” program through which it collected and illegally stored intelligence about American Muslims’ First Amendment-protected beliefs and religious practices, according to government documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

The San Francisco FBI’s own documents show that it recorded Muslim religious leaders’ and congregants’ identities, personal information and religious views and practices. The documents also show that the FBI labeled this information as “positive intelligence” and disseminated it to other government agencies, placing the people and organizations involved at risk of greater law enforcement scrutiny as potential national security threats. None of the documents indicate that the FBI told individuals interviewed that their information and views were being collected as intelligence and would be recorded and disseminated.

Continue reading →

Scholars slam France over Qaradawi ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and Mayor 2France has come under fierce criticism from an international body of Muslim scholars over denying prominent scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi entry into the southern European country to attend a major Islamic conference.

“We are surprised, and we admonish France for refusing to grant Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi a visa,” Sheikh Ali al-Qaradaghi, the secretary general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, March 27. “He is a moderate scholar who contributed to combating extremism in Islamic thoughts.”

Continue reading →

UOIF defends Qaradawi, opposes Sarkozy’s ban, accuses government of capitulation to Front National

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UOIF logoThe Union of French Islamic Organisations is surprised at the current controversy provoked by a statement by the National Front spreading inaccurate information about Sheikh Qaradawi when he has visited France and Europe on several occasions.

The UOIF regrets that the climate of suspicion toward the Muslim community is the source of a controversy over information that has been available for months.

Sheikh Qaradawi is a man of peace and tolerance who has worked for openness and moderation and whose positions are always in favour of justice and peoples’ freedom. He was received by Pope Jean-Paul II and for several years has carried out work on interfaith dialogue with Jewish and Christian communities around the world.

He exercises a positive influence in the Muslim world and is continually attacked by extremist movements because of his modern positions in favour of democracy, women’s rights and dialogue between civilisations.

Continue reading →