The Associated Press reports on how the US Sikh community has been targeted by racists who can’t distinguish between Sikhs and Muslims.
Qaradawi backs Abul-Futuh for presidency
Qaradawi addresses mass rally in Tahrir Square in February
Prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has reiterated support for senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abul-Futuh’s bid to run for Egypt’s presidency.
“I will vote for Abul-Futuh,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), has told the Qatari newspaper Al-Arab.
Dr. Abul-Futuh has unveiled a bid to run in Egypt’s presidential elections as an independent. Abul-Futuh has said that he had consulted Sheikh Qaradawi before his decision to run for presidency.
A doctor by profession, Abul-Futuh, 60, is currently secretary-general of the Arab Doctors Union. He holds an MA in hospital management and an LLM from Cairo University’s Faculty of Law. Abul-Futuh is a member of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council, but not the 16-member governing body.
Alongside Abul-Futuh, the list of presidential hopefuls includes former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, former leader of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei and prominent scholar Mohamed Salim Al-Awa.
Abul-Futuh’s presidential bid has been opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has said that it will not field a candidate in the presidential elections. The Muslim Brotherhood has sacked Abul-Futuh over his decision to seek presidency.
Cf. “Egypt elections expose divisions in Muslim Brotherhood”, New York Times, 19 June 2011
In 2004, when he was Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone came under attack over his decision to welcome Qaradawi to a conference at City Hall. Ken’s response was that it was important to engage with Qaradawi because he is a figure with mass influence who represents a progressive force within Islam. Developments in Egypt this year have completely vindicated Ken’s judgement.
EDL is blocked as thousands resist
Socialist Worker reports on opposition to the English Defence League’s demonstrations last Saturday.
London Assembly Member calls on Home Secretary to ban EDL march in Tower Hamlets
The Home Secretary has been asked today to ban a threatened march by the English Defence League through London’s East End.
The call comes from the London Assembly’s budget chairman John Biggs, who represents East London at City Hall. He has written to Theresa May asking her to ban the “divisive” march through Whitechapel planned for September 3 – anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.
“I have real concerns that groups opposed to the Far Right EDL will also take to the streets if it goes ahead,” he said. “The results will be huge public disorder, a risk of injury to the public and damage to property.”
Today’s letter was the second in a week to the Home Secretary in which he outlines his concerns: “I believe the march will be totally divisive.” It would be staged the first weekend after Ramadan, he points out, if it goes ahead.
Muslim woman sues Duane Reade over hijab ban
A former Duane Reade employee on Long Island says she was fired when she started wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim head covering, a lawsuit charges. Hira Iqbal, 21, claims that boss Errol Smith told her store policy “does not allow people like that” to wear such clothes at work, claims the federal First Amendment lawsuit, filed in Central Islip. A spokesperson for Duane Reade said Iqbal quit and was not fired.
EDL Halifax demo: Let’s go mental, the mob yelled
Bottles were hurled at police by the mob of EDL supporters gathered at the Eureka car park.
Shouting anti-Islamic chants and “Let’s go mental”, they decided to crowd against the line of officers standing across the car park entrance. Police had to ask them to move back to avoid protesters at the front from getting crushed.
Judge rules ex-firefighter cannot sue over ‘Ground Zero mosque’
Hysterical right-wing Islamophobes protest against Park51 in August 2010
A Manhattan judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a former New York City firefighter who is trying to stop the construction of an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan.
The former firefighter, Timothy Brown, sought to overturn a decision by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to deny landmark status for a 150-year-old building on Park Place that would be demolished to make way for the center.
The building, which once housed a Burlington Coat Factory store, was damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that destroyed the World Trade Center two blocks away. Developers of the center, known as Park51, hope to erect a new building that would include a swimming pool, an auditorium and a mosque.
In a decision issued on Friday, Justice Paul G. Feinman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan wrote that Mr. Brown was “an individual with a strong interest in preservation of the building” but added that Mr. Brown lacked any special legal standing on its fate.
The community center project was proposed by a developer, Sharif el-Gamal; the imam of a nearby mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf; and his wife, Daisy Khan. Critics of the project contended that it was wrong to place a mosque so close to where the 9/11 attack was carried out by Muslim extremists. After a hearing in March, Mr. Brown called the developers “un-American.”
Supporters of the project, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, have maintained that under the Constitution, no one has the right to dictate where a house of worship may be located.
In court papers, Mr. Brown’s lawyers suggested that the decision to withhold landmark status had been influenced by the mayor. A lawyer for the city called that argument “a conspiracy theory” and said the landmarks commission had followed proper procedures.
Mr. Gamal’s lawyer, Adam Leitman Bailey, called the decision “a victory for America” and said: “Despite the tempest of religious hatred, the judge flexed our Constitution’s muscles enforcing the very bedrock of our democracy.”
For mad Pamela Geller this ruling is “another nod for the Islamic supremacists who seek to desecrate the sacred ground of Ground Zero with a 15-story mega-mosque in a building destroyed in the 911 attacks”. According to Geller, Sharif el-Gamal’s lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey is “a true stealth jihadist”.
Anti-Islam group finds fertile ground in Nashville
ACT! for America sums up its mission in four words: “They must be stopped.”
The “they” in question are Muslims, who ACT! for America’s leaders insist are involved in a stealthy jihad to destroy the United States from the inside out, replacing the Constitution with the Islamic legal code known as Shariah.
The Virginia Beach, Va.-based national nonprofit claims 150,000 members and spreads its message through books, websites, radio ads, cable television and the work of local chapters.
It has become a potent political force in Nashville, home to the largest ACT chapter in the nation. Local members have opposed new mosques and lobbied for laws limiting Islamic influence – including a new state anti-terrorism law that originally referenced Shariah law.
Their message appeals to Bible Belt Christians, who fear that Islam and secularization threaten their way of life, and Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel, who see Muslims as the enemy of that nation.
Cambridge: EDL protestors prevented from attacking mosque and then throw Qur’ans at Muslims
Members of the English Defence League (EDL) made a failed bid to target a Cambridge mosque after they marched through the city.
The incident came after a relatively peaceful march by the EDL through the city centre in which scuffles with police broke out along with bottle-throwing. Officers threw up a cordon around the mosque in Mawson Road and managed to quell the troublemakers.
Officers quelled some of the flashpoints sparked as around 200 EDL marchers were taunted by a small number of counter-protesters from an earlier 1,500 strong demonstration by Unite Against Fascism.
But members of the EDL, who arrived in coaches from across the country to Queens’ Green, also began fighting amongst themselves.
ECHR refuses to rule against Swiss minaret ban
Europe’s rights court on Friday rejected two cases brought by Muslims against Switzerland’s constitutional ban on the construction of new minarets.
The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights said it would not consider the cases because the plaintiffs “cannot claim to be ‘victims’ of a violation” of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court enforces.
One of the cases was brought by a former spokesman for the mosque of Geneva and the other by a number of Swiss Muslim associations.
Switzerland held a referendum in November 2009 in which citizens voted to ban the construction of new minarets, a move that drew criticism worldwide. The vote inserted a new line in the Swiss constitution stipulating that “the construction of minarets is forbidden”.
The plaintiffs had said the ban violated their religious rights, but judges in Strasbourg said they had not proven the ban “had any concrete effect” on the plaintiffs.
As the plaintiffs could not prove they planned to imminently erect a mosque with a minaret, they could not show they were subject to any discrimination, the judges said. “The simple fact that this could be the case in the near or far future is not, in the eyes of the court, sufficient” to warrant the examination of the cases, the judges said.
The Strasbourg court is due to consider three more cases on the minaret ban.
See also “Strasbourg minaret ruling causes no surprise”, Swissinfo, 6 July 2011