EDL Jewish division leader needs geography lesson

James Cohen, the recently appointed leader of the English Defence League’s Jewish division, has a post over at the International Free Press Society’s website attacking the 8-month sentence imposed on an EDL member, one Daniel Parker, who chanted racist slogans outside a mosque in South Yorkshire.

Bizarrely, Cohen heads his report “EDL supporter jailed for 8 months for chanting outside a London Mosque”. I mean, I know the EDL’s support within Anglo-Jewry is so minimal that they have to appoint a Canadian as the head of JDiv, but is Cohen really so ignorant of the country whose Jewish community he’s supposed to represent that he thinks London is in Yorkshire?

Cohen also complains that the Sheffield Star editorial he reproduces “gives little to none in terms of information that would indicate what this person actually did”. Well, let us fill in some of the details for him. According to a report in the Yorkshire Post, Daniel Parker was part of an EDL gang who besieged the Muslim Community Centre in Barnsley, throwing stones at the building and subjecting the imam to what the judge who sentenced Parker described as “vile and disgusting” racist abuse.

On their Facebook page, by the way, Barnsley EDL state: “Our arguement is not against normal muslim people but extremists preaching hate on our streets/harbouring terrorists and encouraging the formation of an islamic state within our shores. Despite constant bad press claiming we are racist this is completely inaccurate….”

Texas: Baptist church hosts Brigitte Gabriel

First Baptist Church in KatyLast night, September 22, the town of Katy, typically known for high school football and achievement in public education, played host to an event featuring the nationally divisive discussion about the perceived peril that Islam poses against traditional Judeo-Christian values in America.

The gathering, sponsored by First Baptist Church of Katy, featured president of ACT! for America Education Brigitte Gabriel speaking on the proposed threats that Islam poses to the United States.

Dr. Randy White, Senior Pastor of First Baptist, said the event was an “educational venture to help First Baptist members and people in Katy understand the radical Muslim agenda out there threatening Judeo-Christian values.”

Attendees shared that Ms. Gabriel spoke in characteristically blunt tones and unsurprisingly held nothing back in presenting her perspective on Islam in America. Painting broad strokes across history and the globe, the ACT! for America Education president argued that radicalism is at the core of Islam and that the radical Muslim agenda has survived for 1400 years and is now persistent here in the United States. Speaking from her perspective as a Lebanese born Christian now living in America, Ms. Gabriel called for political measures to halt the suggested agenda of radical Muslims to enforce sharia law in the United States and repeatedly stated, “I’ve already lost one country, I do not want to lose another.”

Her speech was welcomed with strong applause, and at one point a standing ovation, by a crowd of some 500 attendees from the Katy community.

However, Ms. Gabriel’s visit did not garner positive reception alone. The Houston Press’s Richard Connely decried the event with a tongue-in-cheek article in which he stated: “If you’re wanting to hear a bigoted, pathetically overbroad stereotyping of a religion and a culture, what better place to go to than a church?”

Houston Chronicle, 23 September 2011

More evidence of FBI’s anti-Islam bias revealed

FBI library books

Following months of denials, the FBI is now promising a “comprehensive review of all training and reference materials” after Danger Room revealed a series of Bureau presentations that tarred average Muslims as “radical” and “violent”.

But untangling the Islamophobic thread woven into the FBI’s counterterrorism training culture won’t be easy. In addition to inflammatory seminars which likened Islam to the Death Star and Mohammed to a “cult leader”, Danger Room has obtained more material showing just how wide the anti-Islam meme has spread throughout the Bureau.

The FBI library at Quantico currently stacks books from authors who claim that “Islam and democracy are totally incompatible”. The Bureau’s private intranet recently featured presentations that claimed to demonstrate the “inherently violent nature of Islam”, according to multiple sources. Earlier this year, the Bureau’s Washington Field Office welcomed a speaker who claimed Islamic law prevents Muslims from being truly loyal Americans. And as recently as last week, the online orientation material for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces included claims that Sunni Islam seeks “domination of the world”, according to a law enforcement source.

Danger Room, 23 September 2011

See also Think Progress, 23 September 2011

Dutch PM clashes with Wilders

Prime Minister Mark Rutte has crossed swords in parliament with populist Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders. The PVV has an agreement to support the minority centre-right government from parliament on most issues.

At one point, the two men shouted at each other to “behave normally”. The exchange followed the prime minister objecting to an earlier statement by a PVV MP, calling Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan an “Islamic monkey”.

Mr Rutte also warned the PVV leader against overemphasising the problem of criminality amongst Dutch-Moroccan youths. He told Mr Wilders that this could lead to the alienation of law-abiding and highly qualified members of the Dutch-Moroccan community. Mr Wilders countered that such people should take the criminal members of their community in hand.

The prime minister also made it clear that the government is against holding a referendum on banning the construction of new minarets on mosques in the Netherlands. On Wednesday, the PVV put forward holding such a referendum.

RNW, 22 September 2011

Michael Nazir-Ali with the English Defence League

Nazir-Ali with Blackburn EDL

Here’s a photo from Blackburn EDL’s Facebook page that a contact has drawn our attention to. It may be questionable whether Michael Nazir-Ali knew that the people he was being photographed with were EDL. But it’s hardly surprising that they wanted to discuss “the dangers of sharia law and radical Islam” with him, as the former Bishop of Rochester’s views on those issues have much in common with the EDL’s.

The discussion took place in June at a talk by Nazir-Ali at St Andrew’s Church in Leyland, which was billed by his hosts as focusing on “the rise of Secularism and Islam and how Christians in high density Muslim areas like ours might best respond”. Nazir-Ali’s talk was well received by the EDL. “I could have listened to him for at least another 2 hours!!!”, one member of Blackburn division commented. “Felt GREAT that a man of the cloth was on our wavelength – BRILLIANT!!”

It’s just one more example of how mainstream Islamophobia provides the conditions in which more thuggish forms of anti-Muslim hatred exemplified by the EDL (see for example here and here) can thrive and grow.

Pamela Geller’s new anti-Islam ad describes Palestinians as ‘savages’

Pamela Geller is complaining that New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority has shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm for her latest advert, which claims that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a “war between the civilized man and the savage”, and she is threatening legal action against the MTA. Geller is particularly outraged that the MTA are prepared to accept “repulsive antisemitic, anti-Israel ads” – like this one.

The Gothamist has the details.

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Muslim chaplains connect communities to public bodies

Muslim chaplains in Britain play a key role linking their communities with public organisations, research by Cardiff University has found.

It found a rapidly growing number of Muslims in a sphere of work usually associated with the Christian faith. Chaplains can be found in prisons, hospitals, airports, courts, higher education and the military, with some people describing them as role models. A conference at the university will discuss the project on Thursday.

The research involved interviews with 65 Muslim chaplains, both male and female. It observed them at work, and spoke to the people they were working with. Led by Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, it is aimed at finding out more about the background, training, role and impact of Muslim chaplains in Britain.

“Chaplaincy is a rapidly expanding sphere of work for Muslim religious professionals in the UK, but we know very little about the work and role of these chaplains,” said Dr Gilliat-Ray. “We wanted to answer questions such as: Who decides to become a Muslim chaplain? What is involved in Muslim chaplaincy practice? What is the impact of Muslim chaplaincy within and beyond the institutions they serve?”

BBC News, 22 September 2011

Posted in UK

Wilders calls for referendum on minaret ban

The anti-Islam PVV wants to hold a referendum on the building of new minarets in the Netherlands, along the line of the Swiss vote, party leader Geert Wilders said on Wednesday. Wilders said he is to submit draft legislation to parliament to pave the way for a public vote.

“Minarets hurt the eyes. They are the towers of a rising desert ideology,” the Telegraaf quoted Wilders as saying. Minarets have nothing to do with religion, he said. Rather, they are meant to be an “imperialist and ideological sign of domination’.

Dutch News, 21 September 2011

French court issues first fine over niqab ban

A French police court on Thursday issued its first fines against two women charged with wearing the full-face covering Islamic niqab.

Police have issued several on-the-spot fines since the ban came into effect in April but these are the first court-issued fines, with the women vowing to appeal their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.

Hind Ahmas, 32, was ordered to pay a 120-euro fine, while Najate Nait Ali, 36, was fined 80 euros. The court did not order them to take a citizenship course, as had been requested by the prosecutor.

The two women arrived too late to attend the court’s deliberations. One of the women had not been allowed into the court in May because she refused to take off her niqab to show her face.

Yann Gre from the Don’t Touch My Constitution association that is defending the two women who were arrested in May in front of the town hall of Meaux, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Paris, said that they would appeal. If the fines are confirmed by a higher court, they will take their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, he said. “This law forbids women in niqab from leaving their homes and going out in public. It’s a kind of life-sentence to prison,” he said.

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