Canadian Muslim organisation condemns prime minister’s Islam comments

The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada is urging Muslims to speak out against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent remarks about their religion.

Harper told CBC this week that “Islamicism” poses the most pressing threat to Canada’s security, and that the country’s intelligence service is mostly preoccupied with Islamic extremism. Harper’s spokesman later clarified to CBC News that the prime minister was “referencing Islamic terrorism – the Islamists” in his remarks.

The council is urging Harper to apologize for the comments, saying the actions of fanatics do not represent Islamic beliefs. The council says Harper’s words will damage efforts to bridge cultural gaps and fight extremist activities in Canada.

It wants imams in its affiliated mosques to condemn the comments in today’s prayer gatherings. The council is also urging Canadians to contact the Prime Minister’s Office to demand an apology for “insulting the faith of 1.6 billion Muslims.”

“How can Mr. Harper associate Islam with radicalism and fanaticism?” the group asked in a statement. “We are working hard to bring people of all faiths together to fight extremism and radicalism but Mr. Harper’s comments about Islam have damaged those efforts.”

CBC, 9 March 2011

Resisting Islamophobia in Rutherford County

Rutherford Reader 9-11Over at the Huffington Post Janell Ross profiles Anthony Mijares, a Roman Catholic pensioner who has waged an admirable one-man campaign to persuade businesses and shops to boycott the Rutherford Reader, a rabidly Islamophobic free weekly newspaper that has played a prominent role in the right-wing propaganda war against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.

Ross quotes Peter Doughtie – the editor, publisher and owner of the Reader – as writing in last week’s issue:

“Muslims are not in America to assimilate. They are here to change our system…. Our preachers should go beyond telling us more than ‘we must love our enemies.’ That is simply passing the buck. They should be getting every Christian ready and armed with the Word of God and an understanding of the Quran and Hadith, to defeat those who are out to destroy Christianity, and our American way of life.”

The current edition of the Reader features a front page photomontage of the 9/11 attacks with the headline “We Will Never Forget”. Inside the paper a guest column by Pastor Darrel Whaley of the Kingdom Ministries Worship Center begins: “How can we forget 9/11 when the actions of Muslims, led by the teachings of Islam, continue to remind us. The United States alone has been under attack the past ten years on forty different occasions.” (Pastor Whaley’s further thoughts on Islam, Muslims and the Murfreesboro Islamic Center can be found here. For example: “There’s over twenty thousand Muslims in Middle Tennessee. But as the percentages of Muslims gets greater, a greater saturation, the possibility of them getting radical is going to increase. Because that’s the purpose of it – they want to take over America and the whole world.”)

Another columnist – one Tom Murrah of Toolsmartz, a blog that combines the promotion of evangelical Christianity with fascinating posts on the technicalities of woodworking machinery – writes: “In my opinion, those who attacked us on 9-11 were not ‘Islamic Radicals’ as everyone wants to paint them. They were true-blue followers of Islam. ‘Fundamentalists’? Yes you could call them that. They are following the message of the Quran, faithfully.” As for the claim that the Muslims involved in the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro are peaceful, “perhaps they are simply following the Quran and lying to us”.

The paper also includes two articles by Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, publishers of the handy 50-page guide Sharia Law for Non-Muslims (“If you want to lobby against Islam with any legislator, councilman, school board member, or politician, then Sharia Law for Non-Muslims is the perfect tool”). And another comment piece raises the scary prospect of a Muslim contesting the 2012 US presidential election (“President Abdul Hassan? It Could Happen!”)

In response to Anthony Mijares’s campaign the Rutherford Reader has run a series of full-page ads attacking him, and even published his home address – in circumstances where opponents of the Murfreesboro anti-mosque campaign have received death threats. But Mijares has refused to be intimidated. If there were an award for resisting Islamophobia in the US, then Anthony Mijares would surely be on the list of nominees.

Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood – they’re all part of the same Islamist movement, claims Blair

Blair with BushTony Blair, interviewed by John Humphrys on this morning’s Radio 4 Today programme, explains that the “war on terror” is not just against al-Qaeda but against all forms of “radical Islamism”.

He poses the rhetorical question about 9/11: “was this a group of isolated people, terrorists, with an ideology, who committed a terrible atrocity or was this group at the furthest end of a spectrum of what I would call radical Islamism, and therefore this is something far bigger, far greater than even we assessed after September 11?”

Blair opts firmly for the latter: “It’s not just about a movement prepared to use terror. The ideology, the narrative that gives rise to this is far deeper and far broader. When I’m in the Middle East now and you see for example the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, or Hamas, you look at the role that Iran is playing in the region, I think it’s a big mistake to say this was just about Bin Laden and a group of terrorists.”

Perhaps Harry’s Place should contact Blair and offer him a guest post.

Edinburgh protests: anti-fascists outnumber Scottish Defence League

Hundreds of police have staged a show of force in central Edinburgh at a rally by the Scottish Defence League. Almost 200 supporters of the far right group were heavily outnumbered by officers drawn from forces across the central belt. They were penned in after the city council refused them permission to march.

A counter demonstration of about 400 Unite Against Fascism protesters was allowed to hold a procession. They marched along Princes Street before attending a rally.

BBC News, 10 September 2011

Two more in court over EDL attack on Plymouth kebab shop

Michael Rafferty and Ricky BurleyTwo men have appeared before Plymouth magistrates accused of resisting police officers. Ricky Burley, aged 43, and 33-year-old Michael Rafferty appeared together charged with offences in Exeter Street on August 31.

Burley, of High Street, Stonehouse, denied threatening behaviour and resisting or obstructing a police officer. Rafferty, of Queen Street, Devonport, denied obstructing or resisting a second officer. Plymouth magistrates were told the incident happened outside the Wild Coyote pub, now called the East End bar.

They were released on bail on the same condition until their trial before magistrates on a date to be set in the next few months.

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Problem is not multiculturalism but Muslims, says German law professor

RT interviews Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider:

RT: Multiculturalism has failed, say European leaders. But what are the actual consequences of that failure?

KAS: If by multiculturalism you mean people from southern Europe, Germany, northern Europe, Hungary, Poland, Russia, all European nations, living together, then no, it has not failed. There is no problem at all.

The problem is with the Muslims. It’s not the people who constitute the problem, but Islam. And Islam comes with Muslim people. They build active groups that promote Islam and advocate the establishment of Sharia law. And Sharia law, particular its criminal section, is absolutely impossible for European relationships. We have religious pluralism in Europe and not a single religion is dominant. But Islam is the religion that tolerates another religion as long as it has no power.

(Via Islam in Europe)

Poll: American views on Islam closely follow party affiliation

PRRI

A comprehensive new report by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution reveals a deeply divided American public when it comes to Islam and the place of Muslims in the United States. The survey – “What it means to be American: Attitudes in an increasingly diverse America ten years after 9/11” – shows that “Americans are struggling to reconcile principles of religious liberty and the inclusion of new groups in America with specific discomfort and fears, particularly around American Muslims and Islam,” says Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI.

Some 47 percent of all Americans, according to the poll, believe that the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life. And the splits along ideological lines reveal a deeply divided public. Large majorities of Republicans (63 percent) and people who identify with the Tea Party (66 percent) say that Islamic values are in contrast with American values. At the same time, however, a majority of Democrats (55 percent) and independents (53 percent) disagree with that view.

Examiner.com, 8 September 2011

See also PRRI website

Download the report here

French police stop Facebook call to cut Muslims’ throats

Egorger les musulmans Facebook page

French police are trying to track down the instigator of a Facebook page that called on people to cut the throats of Muslims on the Eid Al-Adha holiday. The page has been closed down but its author is being sought for breaking anti-racist laws.

Spotted by the Collective against Islamophobia, the page, reproduced on the collective’s website, was headlined “Cut Muslims’ throats, not sheep’s”. It called on people all over the world to turn to Islamophobic murder on 6 November, the date of Eid Al-Adha which marks the end of the Haj, the piligrimage to Mecca which is one of the obligations of a good Muslim.

During the festivities Muslims sacrifice sheep in honour of Abraham, regarded as a prophet by Islam, Judaism and Christianity, to mark the biblical story of his willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the Angel Gabriel’s offer of a sheep as a substitute. “At last we will be able to celebrate for a good reason,” the page declared.

The police have declared the page’s message “despicable words which are actionable under law”.

RFI, 9 December 2011

UKIP welcomes European anti-immigration parties to its conference

Ukip has been accused of pandering to xenophobia by inviting two prominent figures from European anti-immigration parties to address its annual conference today.

The star speaker will be Timo Soini, the leader of the True Finns, a previously fringe nationalist party which scored a surprise success by coming third in the Finnish general election. Ukip has been attracted by the fiercely Eurosceptic outlook of the party, which tapped into opposition to offering financial support for Mediterranean nations hit by the Eurozone crisis.

But the True Finns have also described immigrants as “parasites on taxpayers’ money” and suggested ethnically Finnish women should study less and spend more time having babies.

Mr Soini will be joined by the MEP Barry Madlener, of the Dutch Freedom Party. Its leader, Geert Wilders, has attacked Islam as a violent religion and compared the Koran to Mein Kampf.

Independent, 9 September 2011

Update:  UKIP reports that Madlener “gave a strong speech on the importance of retaining national identity and received a standing ovation for his inspirational words”.