Muslim Volunteers Maintain Calm Despite Far-Right Threat
• Mass peaceful protest in support of tolerance and hope
• EDL fails to march through Tower Hamlets
• IFE members praised by police for professionalism
Over 10,000 people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds claimed the streets of the East End yesterday in the name of tolerance and hope, defying more than 1,000 hooligans from the far-right English Defence League (EDL) attempting to march on Tower Hamlets.
A mosque in the West Bank village of Qusra, south of Nablus, was set on fire Monday morning, hours after Israeli police officers destroyed three illegal structures in the settlement outpost of Migron.
According to Palestinian sources, a group of settlers arrived at the village mosque at approximately 3 A.M., threw burning tires toward it, and broke several of its windows. The event is the latest in a series of clashes between settlers and Palestinians in the region.
The Institute of Race Relations has published a briefing paper by Liz Fekete, Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre. The paper includes:
• An analysis of the various elements in the Islamic conspiracy theory that Breivik drew on, its discursive frameworks, its key shapers and followers. Here certain intellectual currents within neoconservativism and cultural conservatism, and concepts such as clash of civilisations, Islamofascism, new anti-Semitism and Eurabia, are examined. While these may not support the notion of a deliberate conspiracy to Islamicise Europe, they are often used by conspiracy theorists to underline the righteousness of their beliefs and actions.
• An appendix of ‘Responses to the Oslo massacre’ from official statements to ripostes from counter-jihadists, extreme-right politicians and neoconservative political commentators.
• Detailed documentation of anti-Muslim violence and related provocations throughout Europe in 2010 and 2011 including desecrations of mosques and Islamic cemeteries; petrol bombs and other attacks on mosques and worshippers; physical attacks and extreme-right campaigns.
A coalition of a dozen civil rights and advocacy organizations is calling on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Justice to take action in response to revelations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is engaged in widespread religious and ethnic profiling and monitoring of Muslim communities and houses of worship in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The revelations are contained in documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP) showing that undercover NYPD officers in a so-called “Demographics Unit” targeted the Muslim communities with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. NYPD officials denied the Demographics Unit ever existed, despite the AP’s publication of an NYPD presentation that described the mission and makeup of the unit.
A coalition letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requests that the committee conduct “an immediate investigation into this affair and hold formal hearings on the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD and its legality.”
The coalition letter to the U.S. Marshals Service requests that the organization “withdraw its deputization of those special unit police officers involved in the above mentioned NYPD intelligence gathering activities, taking into account their safety and liability, the legality of such activities, and the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD.”
A similar coalition letter to the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section requests “an immediate investigation into this apparent pattern of profiling by the New York City Police Department.”
Coalition members include:
* Afghans for Peace
* Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
* Asian Law Caucus
* Bill of Rights Defense Committee
* Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
* Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR)
* Demand Progress
* Defending Dissent Foundation
* DownsizeDC.org
* Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)
* Jews Against Islamophobia
* South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)
Muslims performed Eid al Fitr prayers outside in Greece, in the gathering “permitted by authorities” in the only European capital without an official mosque.
The Greek government has repeatedly set aside plans for the construction of a mosque and Muslim cemetery in the city of five million people.
Greece has a growing Muslim community and Athens’ Muslim community is without an official mosque and prayers are usually held at cultural centers or community halls or private apartments around the city.
The Muslim community in Greece is estimated at about 1 million, in a country where the only mosques are in the northeastern region of Xanthi near the Turkish border, home to a large Muslim Turk minority.
No mosque has operated in the Greek capital since the country left from the Ottoman rule in 1832 and Muslims in Greece have to pray at stadiums in Athens as a proper mosque still remains a dream after more than two decades of campaigning.
Wilders on the platform with Oskar Freysinger of the Swiss People’s Party and (right) René Stadtkewitz of Die Freiheit
Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders has hit out at both the EU and Islam at a small far-right German party in Berlin.
Amid tight security, the Dutch anti-Islam politician spoke at a gathering of Die Freiheit, led by René Stadtkewitz, widely seen as the German version of Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party. Mr Stadtkewitz accuses the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, of selling Germany to Europe. He also claims that most of Germany’s unemployed come from Muslim countries.
In his speech, Mr Wilders attacked the European Union and Islam, which he described as the two biggest threats. He stressed, however, that “Breivik is not one of us”. He was referring to the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik who invoked Mr Wilders as an inspiring example after killing 77 people in twin attacks in and near the capital Oslo in July. “We reject violence, we are democrats, we believe in peacefulness, we reject Islam for its violent character,” Mr Wilders said.
The meeting was attended by 600 people, far fewer than expected. Police had cordoned off the area around the hotel where it was held. Several hundred demonstrators protested against the meeting.
Die Freiheit had originally tried to charge €100 a seat for the meeting. Unable to attract sufficient interest at that inflated figure, the organisers were forced to slash the price to €5 in an attempt to fill the 1,000-capacity venue. All in vain, it would appear.
So the East London Advertiser reports. It’s some of the same people who signed that ridiculous letter to the Guardian calling for a ban on the EDL march because it would cost too much to police it and stating that they had “no doubt that the Met could contain this demonstration”.
Details of the United East End/UAF demonstration on Saturday can be found here.
It’s not going well for the English Defence League’s demonstration in Tower Hamlets tomorrow. They had planned to meet in Hainault and then travel by tube to Liverpool Street station, from which the police would escort them to the place where their static protest is to be held. But members of the rail union the RMT put a block on that, saying that they would stop work on health and safety grounds if the EDL were allowed to gather at Liverpool Street.
Denied the use of that assembly point, the EDL announced last night that they would be gathering at two pubs in Euston – O’Neills and the Euston Flyer. However, after being informed of the situation by Unite Against Fascism management declined to host the EDL and said they would close the pubs tomorrow if the EDL turned up. So this morning there was another change of plan. The EDL now intends to meet in three pubs in Kings Cross – the Flying Scotsman and Dun A Ri (now operating under the name of Millers) in Caledonian Road and the Driver in Wharfdale Road.
It remains to be seen whether they are allowed to meet there. Unite Against Fascism has circulated the phone numbers of the pubs – Flying Scotsman 020 7837 8271, Dun A Ri (Millers) 020 7837 4863, Driver 0207 278 8827 – and are asking supporters to POLITELY urge these pubs not to host the EDL.
Update: UAF reports that the three Islington pubs will refuse to host the EDL too.
Tom Griffin, co-author of The Cold War on British Muslims, recommends the Center for American Progress’s new report Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America and examines the EDL’s links with the Center for Vigilant Freedom.
A Wichita pastor who preaches against Islam has been ordered to stay 1,000 feet away from the Islamic Society of Wichita after he was arrested while distributing Bibles in front of the center.
Mark Holick, pastor of Spirit One Christian Ministry, was also ordered Thursday to serve a year of unsupervised probation and pay a $300 fine for loitering and disrupting a business.
Holick was arrested in front of the society in August 2010 while he and a dozen followers handed out Bibles, the Wichita Eagle reported. Police said they arrested Holick after he ignored a request to move to a public sidewalk. “The only reason you were the one arrested is because you were the only one who disobeyed the police orders,” Sedgwick County District Judge Phil Journey told Holick.
Holick was found guilty last month in Wichita Municipal Court on two counts of loitering and disrupting a local business. The case moved to county court after he appealed that conviction.
During Thursday’s hearing, Holick quoted Bible verses and accused the city of violating his First Amendment rights. “Wichita is confused,” Holick said. “I am not your enemy. Islam is. The Lord said there will be no other gods before me.”
Associated Press, 2 September 2011
Holick’s own account of his arrest can be found here: “I, an American/Wichita born, Wichita raised, Christian citizen am being forced by my own government to stand trial for the crime of preaching the Gospel of our Lord. And the governments witnesses against me are my own government and an Islamist. America is devouring itself.”