Show Racism the Red Card defies budget cuts to fight Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobia FilmA Tyneside charity is widening efforts to rid North East schools of racism, despite suffering budget cuts of more than £80,000.

Show Racism the Red Card chief executive Ged Grebby criticised the “growing influence” of the English Defence League in the region’s schools and claimed a “rise in Islamophobia” and the increased support for far right organisations threatened to exploit youngsters and spread through classrooms.

Last night he said that his charity – which was originally formed in Newcastle in 1996 with the aim of booting racism out of professional and grassroots football – had plans to grow its operations and tackle the issue.

But deep Government cuts and a reduction in local council spending has meant the charity has seen more than £80,000 disappear from its spending purse. Mr Grebby said the charity had been forced to draw on reserves in an effort to maintain its fight against racism.

He said: “The issues have become much more complex than 15 years ago, especially with the rise of Islamophobia and the EDL. The EDL have latched on to this and have exploited the issue and it is a huge issue.” He added: “Public sector cuts have had an impact on all charities and although we have made a loss this year, the success of previous years has meant we were able to use some of our reserve funds.”

Journal Live, 16 August 2011

See also “Anti-racism charity ups efforts to combat EDL”, TES, 12 August 2012

Michigan: opponents decry anti-Sharia bill as racist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rashida Tlaib and Dawud WalidDetroit — Prominent Muslim leaders and others on Tuesday announced their opposition to a bill to ban “foreign laws” in Michigan, calling the measure a racist attack on Islam.

State Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Harvey Santana, D-Detroit, joined activists at a press conference outside Cadillac Place in Midtown to denounce a bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, to outlaw state courts from implementing foreign laws, including Sharia, or Islamic law.

“I’m appalled as the first Muslim woman serving in the Michigan legislation,” Tlaib said. “This is taking a community and casting suspicion on them … targeting them, and it’s completely wrong. It’s racism at its core.”

Santana said the bill “polarizes people based on fear”. “Dave Agema has a history of making bigoted comments,” Santana said.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, attended the event Tuesday and said his group plans to file a lawsuit if the legislation is passed. A House committee has yet to take up the bill.

Darnell White, the interim director of the Detroit Branch NAACP said, “We have too many issues – jobs, (home) foreclosures – to be focused on this”. “This is wrong and we denounced this type of legislation,” White said at Tuesday’s news conference.

Detroit News, 16 August 2011

See also MLive.com, 16 August 2011

Complaint to Charity Commission over Barnabas Fund’s ‘Islamisation’ booklet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Barnabas Fund Slippery SlopeThe Charity Commission has received a complaint about a charity that is campaigning against the “Islamisation of the UK”.

The commission said concerns had been raised about the Barnabas Fund, which is selling a booklet it has produced called Slippery Slope: the Islamisation of the UK.

The Barnabas Fund offers financial support to projects around the world that help Christians suffering oppression and persecution “as a consequence of their faith”.

The booklet claims that DVDs featuring radical preachers are “widely disseminated” in mosques and says that on one such DVD a speaker argues that “if a girl refuses to wear the hijab, she should be hit”. It also claims that radical Muslim preachers say “women are created with deficient intellect”.

A commission spokeswoman said: “Concerns have been raised with us regarding the Barnabas Fund after recent media coverage of a booklet produced by the charity. We are currently considering the issues raised to determine what, if any, regulatory interest there is for the commission.”

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Pamela Geller hails the Middle East Media Research Institute

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geller on MEMRI

Over at Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller reports: “MEMRI does an excellent report on the sweeping global movement to Islamicize the world and compel all peoples to live under Islamic law – the sharia (the imperialistic goal of Islam).” And she reproduces in its entirety a lengthy analytical study by MEMRI which begins:

“Over recent years, a new phenomenon has emerged among radical Islamist circles: the rise of a global network of groups calling for the total Islamization of Western states and societies via the implementation of shari’a law and the abolition of democratic states and their replacement by Islamic regimes. These groups, which have referred to themselves as the global shari’a movement, strive to globalize ideas and tactics hatched within radical Salafi circles in the U.K.”

And what is this “global network of groups” to which MEMRI thinks it appropriate to devote such an in-depth study? It consists of the minuscule sects inspired by Anjem Choudary! Even MEMRI itself admits: “It would seem that the only group outside Britain with a sizeable presence on the ground is Shariah4belgium.” And the “sizeable presence on the ground” that Choudary’s organisation enjoys in the UK may be gauged by the fact that a recent demonstration in London in support of his ludicrous campaign for Sharia law attracted a mere 50 participants. In other words, the “global network of groups” that MEMRI depicts as representing some sort of serious danger to western democracy is just a fantasy.

But this is par for the course with MEMRI. It is a hardline right-wing Zionist organisation whose purpose is to defend the state of Israel by presenting Islam as a threat to the West and thereby marginalising Muslims – who, of course, overwhelmingly support the Palestinian cause. So popular mainstream figures like Yusuf al-Qaradawi are depicted as dangerous maniacs by MEMRI and irrelevant buffoons like Anjem Choudary are portrayed as representing significant forces within the Muslim community. Much of MEMRI’s “research” is little more than an exercise in fiction. No wonder Geller takes the view that “MEMRI is the most vital source of news from the Middle East. Hands down.”

And this is the organisation that has just been granted $200,000 by the US State Department.

Dewsbury: £172,000 bill for 40 minute EDL protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Taxpayers were left with a £172,000 bill for policing a 40-minute demonstration by the English Defence League, the YEP can reveal.

Concerns have been raised about the strain on the public purse following the rally in Dewsbury in June. It was the fifth demonstration in West Yorkshire since the EDL’s formation in 2009. A protest in Leeds in October 2009 cost £131,000 to police.

Kirklees Council leader Mehboob Khan said: “Forty minutes – that’s £4,300 a minute for policing. Every citizen has the right for their voice to be heard, but the EDL need to be aware that their demonstrations are taking money from essential frontline services at a time when the country is struggling. With £172,000 we could have kept two libraries open for a year.”

Yorkshire Evening Post, 15 August 2011

ADL leader poses ‘danger to the fabric of US society’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abe Foxman ADLOver at the American Thinker the one-time Jihad Watch collaborator Andrew Bostom (he and Robert Spencer have since fallen out) takes issue with Abe Foxman’s recent JTA op ed condemning the spread of Sharia hysteria in the US. According to Bostom:

“Abraham Foxman’s latest uninformed rant, ‘Shout down the Sharia myth makers’, re-affirms his nonpareil status as the most blindly agenda-driven organizational Jewish ‘leader’. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s Foxman sprays defamatory charges – rooted in willful ignorance – against all those legitimately concerned with the ceaseless efforts of mainstream institutional American Islam to insinuate Sharia mores and jurisdiction into US society.”

Bostom’s conclusion? Foxman and his views “pose an unacceptable danger to the fabric of US society”.

Oslo mayoral candidate says terrorists are mainly Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Carl HagenAs the local elections take place in Norway next month, politicians are said to lead their campaigns in a peaceful fashion after what happened in Utøya Island and at Oslo City Centre last month. However, some go that extra mile and cause further controversy.

Former Chairman of the Progress Party (FrP) Carl I. Hagen, who is running for Oslo Mayor, has continued his series of contentious remarks, saying most terrorists are Muslims, reports NRK.

Releasing his Party’s manifesto in 2005, he was quoted byAftenposten as criticising the foreigners in Norway, branding them as “perpetrators”. Already in 2004 he was censured for his controversial views of Islam, after he alleged that its extreme faction planned to Islamify the world.

Standing by what he said at the time, Mr Hagen tells Aftenpostentoday: “We had seen regular reports about suicide bombers down to 10-years old in the Middle East. What I said was when holding my speech was just a correct description.”

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was first to respond to Hagen’s recent comments, calling them “grotesque”, particularly when the country is still in mourning about Anders Behring Breivik’s twin massacres on July 22.

“The Progress Party has a tendency to talk about Muslims as large groups, giving them the features and characteristics because they are Muslims. Carl I. Hagen is repeating his message. He says that not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost that all terrorists are Muslims. I think it is a grotesque statement. It was then, and is especially today after what we have experienced in Norway.”

According to the Minister of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion, Audun Lysbakken: “The Progress Party has talked about Islam and Muslims in a way that creates the impression they are a team with specific values ​​and attitudes that do not fit in Norway. It has a responsibility for the attitudes expressed against Muslims in the hours when many thought that Muslims were behind the terror attacks.”

The Foreigner, 15 August 2011