Put Babar Ahmad on trial in the UK NOT the US

Have Faith in British Justice: Put Babar Ahmad on Trial in the UK NOT the US

The Muslim Council of Britain urges all British Citizens to sign the petition calling for Babar Ahmad, a 37 year old British Muslim held for 7 years without charge on an extradition request by the US, to be put on trial in the United Kingdom.

Farooq Murad, Secretary General of the MCB, commented, “The case of Babar Ahmad is problematic: here is a British citizen who is alleged to have committed crimes that can be prosecuted under British law and yet he is being shipped off to the United States, under the controversial Extradition Act 2003. The United States has a troubling record in dealing with terror suspects and therefore the British government has a responsibility to ensure the rights of its citizens are protected while at the same time ensuring justice is served.”

The Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP, Member of Parliament for Tooting said: “As Babar’s Member of Parliament, I have worked with his family and legal team for a number of years arguing that any trial should be held in the UK. I have known Babar for many years – we grew up in the same area of south London. This petition is a good way to raise public awareness of Babar’s case.”

The MCB is supporting a call to designate Friday 28th October as “Babar Ahmad Day” encouraging mosques across the country to get their congregations to sign the petition.

To sign the e-petition, click here:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

Muslim Council of Britain press release, 27 October 2011

CAIR seeks Senate hearing on ‘shocking’ report of NYPD spying on Muslims

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on what the Washington-based civil rights and advocacy organization said is the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) “apparently unrestrained and unconstitutional multi-state monitoring and surveillance of law-abiding American Muslims engaged in almost every activity of normal daily life.”

CAIR issued that call in a letter to the committee after “shocking” revelations by the Associated Press (AP) that “Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files.”

CAIR press release, 26 October 2011

See also Associated Press, 26 October 2011

French court backs private nursery over Islamic headscarf sacking

Baby LoupA French court has ruled that a private nursery had the right to fire an employee for wearing Islamic head-cover, leading its lawyer to hail an advance for secular forces in the country.

An appeal court in Versailles backed up an earlier ruling by a labour court that the Baby Loup nursery in Mantes-la-Jolie was within its rights to sack Fatima Afif in 2008 for refusing to take off her headscarf.

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Islamophobia OFF our campuses!

Enough flyer

Islamophobia OFF our campuses!

Public meeting, called by the Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia

6:30pm, Thursday 27th October 2011

Room 3E, University of London Union, Malet Street, London

Following on from the successful Enough Coalition against Islamophobia summer conference in May 2011, we are now focusing on a very important aspect of Islamophobia that has affected many of us and that will continue to be a source of great injustice for many more if we do not speak out now.

Join the Enough Coalition on Thursday 27th October to discuss Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim hatred on our campuses.

Joining us on the panel are:

Dr Daud Abdullah (British Muslim Initiative)
Sanum Ghafoor (Student, blogger and activist)
Alaa Al Samarrai (FOSIS)
Hicham Yezza (Nottingham Uni – Editor of Ceasefire – and student who was arrested for printing the Al Qaeda manual)
Chris Nineham (Stop the War Coalition and Enough Coalition against Islamophobia)

Others To Be Confirmed!

Free entry, all welcome.

Facebook event page – https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=293831367311653
Facebook – Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia
Twitter – @enoughcoalition Event Hashtag #ECiphobiaUni

The Enough Coalition was established to tackle the rising tide of Islamophobia in the UK and confront anti-Muslim hatred. It brings together a coalition of organisations including Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, British Muslim Initiative, Federation of Students Islamic Societies, One Society Many Cultures, Unite Against Fascism, London Muslim Centre and the Islamic Forum of Europe.

‘Yes, I criticise certain aspects of Islam, but don’t call me a bigot’, demands Islamophobic bigot

Global JihadWriting the Guardian, of all places, Patrick Sookhdeo once again declares that he’s not an Islamophobe. If you’re inclined to swallow that claim have a quick look through the entries under “Sookhdeo” on Islamophobia Watch.

Or check out the list of publications on the Barnabas Fund’s website. In addition to Sookhdeo’s own works, including Slippery Slope: The Islamisation of the UKGlobal Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam and The Challenge of Islam to the Church and its Mission, we find such booklets as Islam and Truth (which examines “the growing challenge which Islam poses to Western society, culture and Church”), Islam and Slavery (which “shows that slavery is accepted uncritically in the Qur’an and sharia and is supported by the example of Muhammad”) and Islam in Britain (which exposes “the way in which the UK is becoming subtly islamised”).

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French court confirms acquittal of man who burned and urinated on Qur’an

An appeals court on Tuesday confirmed the acquittal of a Frenchman accused of inciting racial hatred after posting an internet video of himself burning a Koran and then urinating on it.

Ernesto Rojas Abbate was arrested in October 2010 after posting footage of himself wearing a devil mask and tearing pages from the Islamic holy book before setting it on fire and later urinating on it to extinguish the flames.

Prosecutors, who had been seeking a three-month suspended sentence and €1,000 ($1,400) fine, appealed after a court acquitted him in May on charges of inciting racial hatred.

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FIFA to consider amending hijab ban

FIFA vice president Prince Ali Al Hussein will propose that soccer’s governing body agree on “general principles” for the use of Islamic headscarfs. He’ll bring the issue up at the meeting of the executive committee in December. FIFA banned the Islamic scarf covering a women’s neck in 2007, claiming safety concerns.

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‘Shameful’ graphic novel promotes Islamophobia

Frank Miller's Holy Terror.There is nothing subtle about Frank Miller’s newest graphic novel, Holy Terror. The book opens with the quote: “If you meet the infidel, kill the infidel”, which Mr Miller attributes to the Prophet. From there the jingoism, violence and Islamophobia take off.

Miller is no stranger to controversy. His stories, which include the famous Batman mini-series, The Dark Knight Returns, and comics-to-film 300 and Sin City, regularly explore the darker corners of society amid shades of moral grey. Any nuance, however, is all but absent in his latest work.

Originally envisioned as a Batman tale after September 11 attacks on the US, the comic features heroes The Fixer, and thief-come-love interest, Natalie, as they join forces to stop an Al Qaeda plot on Empire City, a thinly veiled New York City.

For some, the best-seller underlines a worrying shift in American entertainment. “We are witnessing a growing industry of information and fear-mongering, and this work fits in the centre … It’s unfortunate that Islamophobia is becoming mainstream,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil-rights group. He described the work as “shameful”.

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Posted in USA

Texas: arsonist gets 14 months for attack on mosque playground

Dar El Eman Islamic Center playground fireA man whose confessed hatred of Arabs led him to burn down a playground at an Arlington mosque was sentenced to 14 months in prison Monday. He had faced a maximum of 20 years for the hate crime.

Henry Clay Glaspell, 35, pleaded guilty in February to setting the fire at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center at 5511 Mansfield Road – about a half mile from his home at the time. He admitted to a federal court in Fort Worth that he targeted the mosque for days, throwing used cat litter at its door, stealing pipe from it and shouting ethnic slurs at worshippers.

At the time of his crime, July 2010, many across the country were outraged by a New York developer’s plan to build a large Islamic community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan – which detractors dubbed “the ground zero mosque.”

In his plea, Glaspell stated that he did not hate Muslims, but rather Arabs and people of Middle Eastern descent. He will have to pay nearly $12,000 in restitution – the estimated cost of damage to the playground.

Dallas Morning News, 25 October 2011