Sweden: two men charged over Breivik ‘tribute’ attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two men arrested in Västerås on suspicion of attempted murder expressed support for Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre in Norway prior to stabbing two men of non-Swedish origin.

Two men, aged 25 and 26, were charged in Västerås on Friday for attempted murder in connection with attacks on two men of south Asian origin at the end of July.

According to the Dagens Nyheter daily the police report details that one of the defendants sent the follow text message to the other shortly after Behring Brevik’s terror attack on July 22nd: “A Norwegian ‘Nazi’ has killed like, around 84! From the left who, like, cheered on Islam. HAHAHA!! WHITE POWER!”

The Local, 27 September 2011

Nazir-Ali on meeting the English Defence League

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The report about Blackburn EDL acclaiming a talk they attended by Michael Nazir-Ali, and posting a photo of themselves with him on their Facebook page, has been taken up by Riazat Butt at the Guardian. She contacted Nazir-Ali’s office and asked them:

“Was the bishop aware that EDL members were in the audience? Did he know he was posing with EDL members in the photograph? What does he have to say about posing with EDL members and the positive comments he got from EDL members?”

Also: “Does he regret being photographed with them? Would he have had his photograph taken with them if he had known they were members of the EDL? Is he concerned that his views have led EDL members to think he is ‘on their wavelength’?”

Nazir-Ali replied that he had no idea that the people he was photographed with were EDL: “These pictures were requested at a public meeting by individuals who were not known to me and have been published without my consent.” He also refers to a couple of articles he wrote attacking the BNP. But the question “Is he concerned that his views have led EDL members to think he is ‘on their wavelength’?” didn’t receive an answer.

‘Islamists without brakes’: Pipes on the Islamification of Turkey

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When four out of five of the Turkish chiefs of staff abruptly resigned on July 29, 2011, they signaled the effective end of the republic founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk. A second republic headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist colleagues of the AK Party (AKP) began that day. The military safely under their control, AKP ideologues now enjoy can pursue their ambitions to create an Islamic order.”

Daniel Pipes at National Review Online, 27 September 2011

Germany: authorities discuss surveillance of Islamophobic right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

German anti-mosque protestorOfficials from the BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, will discuss the country’s increasingly vocal Islamophobe scene at a meeting on Thursday. There have been calls to put right-wing populist and anti-Muslim groups under increased surveillance.

Islamophobes in Germany could come under increased surveillance by the country’s domestic intelligence agency. There are concerns that the anti-Muslim scene is becoming increasingly dangerous, and some intelligence officials want it to be subject to greater scrutiny, despite stringent German privacy laws.

The subject will be discussed at a meeting on Thursday between the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Heinz Fromm, and the agency’s leaders in the 16 German states. Officials in Bavaria are considering putting right-wing populists under observation as a new form of extremism, while Hamburg has declared it is watching an internet discussion forum similar to anti-Islamic website “Politically Incorrect” (PI).

A spokesman from the North Rhine-Westphalia interior ministry told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper that PI was not currently under observation by intelligence agents, but that the blog was being read closely and that the opinions and comments published on it were “undemocratic.” The xenophobic comments were calculated to “incite young people”, the spokesman added.

Most states are reluctant, however, and the federal interior ministry has also not yet committed itself on the matter. In essence, the question is whether the hatred of Muslims is enough to endanger freedom of religion and international understanding – or whether it is a radical but legitimate expression of opinion by individual authors within the limits of the constitution.

Spiegel, 27 September 2011

Religiously aggravated criminal damage at two Milton Keynes mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An investigation has been opened after three suspected acts of religiously aggravated criminal damage took place in and around two mosques in Milton Keynes.

Between 10.30pm and 11pm on Saturday (September 24), graffiti was sprayed on Granby Mosque, Peverel Drive, Bletchley, and a shed to the side of the building was set alight and destroyed. Detectives believe this incident is connected to two other acts of criminal damage at the mosque in North Street, New Bradwell, and on a white Mercedes Sprinter van in Harwood Street, New Bradwell, overnight between Saturday and Sunday. In all three incidents offensive messages were sprayed.

DI Richard North, investigating officer, said: “I am appealing to anyone who was in the area around this time of these offences, or who has any information to contact my officers. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously near the mosques? Have you heard someone discussing this before or after Saturday night?

“These messages were highly offensive and designed to cause maximum upset to the Muslim community. We have increased our patrols in the areas and I would like to reassure everyone that we are doing all we can to catch those responsible.”

Anyone with information should contact DC Dave Phipps on 0845 8 505 505.

MK News, 26 September 2011

Via ENGAGE

EDL supporter avoids jail after hitting critic in face with bottle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A pub attacker who left his victim with a one inch scar on his head has been spared jail. Liam O’Keefe, 22, hit the victim John Lindsay in the face with a bottle, leaving him bleeding profusely in the sudden outburst at the Station Hotel, Helmshore, in January.

Mr Lindsay was said to have “mildly” told the defendant he needed to sort out his attitude and grow up after he started talking about the English Defence League and made comments about immigration, Burnley Crown Court heard.

O’Keefe was immediately thrown out of the premises by the landlord, who was shocked by what he had seen as there had been no build up. The hearing was told the victim suffered a 3cm laceration to his forehead.

The defendant was arrested and questioned and told police he had had too much to drink. He said he had rowed with Mr Lindsay, but didn’t know what it was about. He he did not think he would have made racist comments.

O’ Keefe, of Hall Street, Haslingden, admitted wounding. He was given 12 months in jail, suspended for 18 months, with a curfew on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, between 7.30pm and 6am. He must pay £750 compensation.

Lancashire Telegraph, 28 September 2011

Rise in far-right hate crimes in Austria

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Austrian authorities say hate crimes by the extreme right spiked 28 percent last year.

In its 2010 report on criminality, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday that it recorded 580 hate crimes by far rightists, including “xenophobic/racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic as well as other acts.” The report says that compares to 453 such crimes in 2009. It says 48.6 percent of such crimes were successfully investigated, compared to 44.2 percent in 2009.

Islamophobia has grown in recent years in Austria, in addition to stubborn anti-Semitic sentiment on the part of some citizens. The rightist Freedom Party, which includes fringe neo-Nazi supporters, has exploited such anti-Muslim feelings to gain popularity.

Associated Press, 27 September 2011

Muslim denied place on Florida county’s Republican Party executive committee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MIAMI — Islam and tea party activism clashed at a raucous meeting Monday night when a group of Broward County Republicans blocked a Muslim activist as a member of the party’s executive committee.

Republicans, who changed their rules to publicly vet Nezar Hamze and then vote on his application by secret ballot, said they didn’t oppose him because he was a Muslim – but because he is associated with the Center for American-Islamic Relations – but because he is associated with the Center for American-Islamic Relations, whose Washington-area affiliate was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism indictment.

Hamze, CAIR’s South Florida director, said his local group had nothing to do with the suspect activities in Washington. He said CAIR advocates for civil rights for Muslims, who have been unfairly targeted ever since 9/11. “I’m aligned with Republican values. And I want to serve the party,” Hamze said, who earlier told a reporter that any effort to block him was the result of anti-Islamic “bigotry”.

At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300. “Terrorist!” said one man. “Let him speak!” said another.

Members of Broward’s Republican Party said Hamze was making a mockery of their rules and was trying to become a member as a publicity stunt. “I don’t have a positive impression of Mr. Hamze. I don’t think he will be an asset to our party,” said Scott Spages, who is involved in programs concerning radical Islam at his church, Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale.

In the end, the Broward Republican Executive Committee voted 11-158 to block him from committee membership. He can still attend meetings, but as a general member of the public. “Wow,” he said afterward. “If I had realized it would be like that, I wish they had just sent me a letter saying I was denied.”

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Muslim mother is abused by schoolchildren

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tracy ShahA mum who converted to Islam says she is being subjected to abuse each day as she walks her children home from school by pupils who jeer at her from a passing bus.

Tracy Shah, 31, of Shipley, who wears a headscarf, claims she has been spat and sworn at since February by a group of pupils travelling on a bus from St Bede’s Catholic Grammar School, which passes her on Canal Road and Gaisby Lane.

Orange juice has been thrown over her two-year-old daughter, water has been thrown at them from bus windows and verbal abuse hurled, Mrs Shah claims.

The mother-of-three who converted to Islam in 2003 before marrying her husband, said: “They have sworn at me and shouted out of the windows at me “why are you wearing a towel on your head?”

Telegraph & Argus, 26 September 2011

BBC ‘jettisons 2,000 years of Christianity’ … at the behest of Marxists and Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mail on Sunday BBC abolishes Christian era1This is the front page headline in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. The accompanying article begins:

“The BBC has been accused of ‘absurd political correctness’ after dropping the terms BC and AD in case they offend non-Christians. The Corporation has replaced the familiar Anno Domini (the year of Our Lord) and Before Christ with the obscure terms Common Era and Before Common Era.”

And the Mail‘s James Delingpole chips in with a comment piece claiming that “all reference to Christ has been expunged” by the BBC, as part of a “Marxist plot”. The BBC’s outrageous policy, Delingpole tells us, is “an act of cultural suicide. Most of us may not realise this but the ideological Left certainly does, for it has long been part of its grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within.”

But it’s not just the Marxists who are behind the BBC’s decision to abolish the Christian era. As the Mail‘s report emphasises: “The website for BBC Religion and Ethics, headed by commissioning editor Aaqil Ahmed, who is a Muslim, is littered with references to Common Era and Before Common Era.” And this is repeated beneath a photo of Ahmed, just in case readers have missed its sinister significance. Indeed, over at his Guardian blog, Martin Robbins points that the original caption to the picture (see below) read: “End of an era: BBC head of religion Aaqil Ahmed, the Corporation say, bizarrely, the change has nothing to with Mr Ahmed.”

This nonsense has been demolished by Tabloid Watch, who point out that the Mail‘s own report provides the refutation of its scaremongering introduction. Buried at the bottom of the article we find: “The BBC said last night: ‘The BBC has not issued editorial guidance on the date systems. Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams’.”

Mail on Sunday BBC abolishes Christian era2