Judge upholds ruling for Murfreesboro mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Murfreesboro mosque sign vandalisedA Rutherford County judge decided to uphold his earlier decision that the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has a right, by law, to build a bigger place of worship.

“Those who are adherents to Islam are entitled to pursue their worship in the United States just as are those who are adherents to more universally established faiths (in our community),” ruled Chancellor Robert Corlew III.

Opponents of the mosque had asked Corlew to reconsider the decision he made in May, which was that the 17 plaintiffs suing Rutherford County government can only challenge whether an open meeting violation occurred over the mosque’s approval.

No trial has been scheduled on whether the county failed to provide sufficient public notice before its Regional Planning Commission met May 24, 2010, to vote on the Islamic center’s plans to construct a 52,960-square-foot community center with a mosque on Veals Road.

“We have a duty equally to treat those whose religious beliefs are similar to the majority beliefs and to those whose beliefs are very different from the majority,” Corlew wrote. “If the zoning laws are too favorable to those seeking to build places of worship, then citizens should prevail upon their elected representatives to change those ordinances, but until they do the Court must apply those laws equally to Protestant Christians, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and others.”

The Tennessean, 31 August 2011

See also “Breaking bread (not signs) in Murfreesboro this Ramadan”, Daily News Journal, 31 August 2011

The EDL and the ‘two-tier legal system’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Here is an exchange that appeared on the English Defence League’s Facebook page yesterday.

EDL bomb Pakistan

As demanded by Gower, who is head of the EDL’s admin team, David Marshall’s threatening comment was eventually removed. Note, however, that Gower has no objection in principle to EDL supporters promoting such views. She merely argues that “it doesn’t look good pre-tower hamlets” if EDL supporters post their threats on the EDL’s own Facebook page and tells Marshall that his comment would be “more suitable for you[r] wall with your personal views”.

Four years ago an Al-Muhajiroun supporter, Umran Javed, received a six-year prison sentence after being convicted of soliciting murder because he chanted “Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA” at a protest against the Danish anti-Islam cartoons. The Crown Prosecution Service justified the decision to charge Javed on the grounds that “when we examined the content of Mr Javed’s speech it was explicit that there was direct encouragement to those present and those watching via the media to commit acts of murder against the Danish and Americans”.

Will the police and CPS try and track down David Marshall and ensure that he is charged with the same offence? Don’t hold your breath.

Last month another extremist, Bilal Ahmad, was jailed for 12 years after being convicted of soliciting murder over messages he posted on the Revolution Muslim website calling for attacks on British MPs who voted in favour of the Iraq war. The CPS stated that Ahmad had committed a “serious offence which strikes at the heart of our democratic society” and that the sentence sent “a warning to people who would seek to encourage violent extremism or to stir up hatred on the internet”.

A couple of days before Ahmad was sentenced, George Galloway complained to the police about an explicit appeal to “Kill George Galloway“, posted on the Facebook page of former prominent EDL member Daryl Hobson. Hobson was the source of press reports that the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik had been linked to the EDL and was one of the contacts to whom Breivik sent his manifesto. It will be interesting to see whether the CPS decides to charge Hobson with soliciting murder. Again, don’t get your hopes up.

The EDL regularly complains about a “two-tier legal system” in the UK, which supposedly discriminates in favour of Muslims and against the EDL’s supporters. It would appear that there is indeed a two-tier system in operation, though the double standards are the exact opposite of what the EDL claims. While the police and CPS enthusiastically pursue Muslim extremists who advocate violence, and applaud the imposition of heavy prison sentences, they show significantly less enthusiasm for prosecutions when the threats of violence come from the anti-Muslim extremists of the EDL.

Universities asked to inform on Muslim students

Posted on by Bob Pitt

University staff including lecturers, chaplains and porters are being asked to inform the police about Muslim students who are depressed or isolated under new guidance for countering Islamist radicalism. The move has resulted in deep discomfort among university lecturers and student union officials who wish to combat terrorism but say the new strategy is an infringement of students’ civil liberties.

Officials implementing the government’s revamped Prevent strategy are training frontline university employees in how to spot students vulnerable to extremism. Documents handed to staff claim that students who seem depressed or who are estranged from their families, who bear political grievances, or who use extremist websites or have poor access to mainstream religious instruction could be at risk of radicalisation.

The National Union of Students has told its officers that they do not have to provide police with details about students unless they are presented with a warrant.

Local authority workers and police officers have been introducing the new strategy over the last month. Inquiries by the Guardianshow that colleges in Lancashire and London have been approached by police and local authorities.

James Haywood, president of Goldsmiths college students’ union in south-east London, met two Prevent officials last week. He said they began by asking about Muslim students and whether the college had problems with its Islamic Society.

“We were appalled to have Prevent officers asking us to effectively spy on our Muslim students. To pass on details of a student who the police consider ‘vulnerable’ is not only morally repugnant but is against the confidential nature of pastoral support. After the rise of hate groups such as the English Defence League, and the recent massacre in Norway, why are Prevent not also telling us to refer on students who have an irrational hatred of Islam?” he said.

Guardian, 30 August 2011

Muslim sues Washington hotel over bias during Israeli delegation’s stay

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today filed a lawsuit against a Washington, D.C., hotel on behalf of a Muslim employee who says he faced discriminationafter he was barred from carrying out his duties on floors occupied last year by a visiting Israeli delegation.

In its suit filed in U.S. District Court for the District Of Columbia against the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) alleges that in December of 2010, the American citizen of Moroccan heritage was forbidden to go to the 8th or 9th floors of the hotel because an Israeli delegation was staying there.

He was reportedly barred from those floors despite the fact that he had previously undergone an FBI background check and had carried out his duties for other foreign delegations and dignitaries, including former American presidents.

“No American should be treated differently or face discrimination by an employer because of his or her race, religion or national origin,” said CAIR Legal Counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili.

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Pro-Deutschland holds demonstration in Berlin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Deutschland Pro Berlin demo August 2011

On Sunday the Islamophobic far-right organisation Bürgerbewegung pro Deutschland (Citizens’ Movement for Germany) staged a march in Berlin in support of its candidates for next month’s state elections.

The protestors brandished placards featuring a picture of a veiled Muslim woman with prison bars superimposed, accompanied by the slogan “Our women remain free”. Another placard which urged support for Pro Deutschland candidates on the basis that this was a vote for “Thilo’s theses” – a reference to Thilo Sarrazin’s best-selling anti-Muslim book Germany Abolishes Itself – had been the subject of a court order prohibiting the use of Sarrazin’s name, so the placards carried a sticker reading “censored” over the word “Thilos”.

Despite following what was billed as a national conference against the “Islamisation” of Germany the previous day, the protest a mere 120 participants, among them around 20 supporters of the neo-Nazi NPD.

New report details roots, funding of Islamophobia machine

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Ground Zero mosque' opponents3

A small number of conservative foundations are propelling a handful of anti-Islamic activists who are fueling rising levels of Islamophobia, according to a report issued Friday (Aug. 26) by the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

The 130-page report identifies seven conservative funders who between 2001 and 2009 gave $42.6 million to eight anti-Islamic causes, most of them headed by individuals who critics say form an organized network.

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