Wife of Ataka leader says violent assault on Muslims at Sofia mosque was equivalent to throwing eggs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kapka Siderova and husbandThe incident in front of the downtown Sofia mosque is a victory of democracy, Kapka Siderova, wife of the leader of the Bulgarian far-right, nationalist Ataka party, Volen Siderov, says.

On May 20, Ataka supporters, led by Siderov, shocked Bulgaria as its rally protesting against the use of loudspeakers by the mosque in downtown Sofia got out of hand, and activists of Ataka assaulted praying Muslims in front of the mosque.

The incident has had wider repercussions, all the way from Bulgarians flocking to lay flowers at the mosque as a sign of apology, to the start of investigation of Ataka for stirring ethnic and religious hatred and the consolidation of the voters of the Bulgarian ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms).

In a Sunday interview for the TV channel bTV, Siderova said the “so-called clash was a way to earn the right to not be exposed to the wail of the Imam”. She insisted the boundaries of tolerance have not been overstepped because there was no fighting, just some pushing, adding things like this happen everywhere and all the time, giving as an example the visit of US President, George W. Bush, in Brussels when demonstrators threw eggs at him.

Novinite, 5 June 2011

81% of US mosques promote jihad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

That’s the headline figure from an article by Andrew Bostom which has been widely reproduced across the “counter-jihadist” blogosphere. It’s no doubt only a matter of time before this claim is taken up by the mainstream right-wing media in the US.

The statistic is taken from a study published in the latest issue of Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Quarterly. How reliable is this study?

Well, it’s not yet available online, so we can’t assess its conclusions at first hand. However, the study is part of the Mapping Shari’a project, and its stated aim is “to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers”. One of the authors is Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University who served for 25 years in the IDF’s military intelligence directorate. The other is David Yerushalmi.

So, probably not entirely reliable.

Update:  See Richard Bartholomew’s comments at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 6 June 2011

Update 2:  Kedar and Yerushalmi’s article is now available onlinehere

Right-wing bigots to protest outside Florida mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joe Kaufman and Pamela GellerA South Florida imam and his Margate mosque will be the target of a street protest Tuesday night.

Izhar Khan, who has been called “a bright young star” by the president of the Masjid Jamaat al-Mumineed mosque, was arrested and charged last month with conspiracy to finance the Taliban in Pakistan. His father, also a South Florida imam, was also charged, along with two other family members.

Calling for the mosque’s closure, a coalition of patriot groups and pro-Israel demonstrators said they will protest outside the building at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“Given the nature of the arrests, and given the fact that the president of the mosque, as well as other mosque goers, continue to support the Khans, we believe it is necessary and warranted that the U.S. government moves to shut down the mosque,” said Joe Kaufman, chairman of Americans Against Hate.

Danita Kilcullen, director of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, said, “Local citizens are outraged. How can this mosque be allowed to remain open?”

“Those of us who work and live in Margate stand behind our troops in our fight against terrorism, and we must eradicate any group, including the MJAM, that supports the Taliban and other terrorist organizations,” said Patrick Laffey of Citizens of Margate.

Sunshine State News, 5 June 2011

Izhar Khan pleaded not guilty at a court hearing on Friday. The possibility that Khan might actually be innocent of the charges against him obviously doesn’t cross the minds of Kaufman and his allies.

Theresa May attacks FOSIS and accuses universities of tolerating ‘Muslim extremists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Theresa MayThe Daily Telegraph reports that home secretary Theresa May has accused universities of “complacency” in tackling Muslim extremism.

May told the Daily Telegraph that universities are not taking the issue of radicalisation seriously enough and that it was too easy for Muslim extremists to form groups on campuses “without anyone knowing”.

May was evidently outlining changes in the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, an updated version of which will published this week.

“I think for too long there’s been complacency around universities,” she said. “I don’t think they have been sufficiently willing to recognise what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalisation that can take place. I think there is more that universities can do.”

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81% of US mosques promote violent jihad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

That’s the headline figure from an article by Andrew Bostom which has been widely reproduced across the “counter-jihadist” blogosphere. It’s no doubt only a matter of time before this claim is taken up by the mainstream right-wing media in the US.

The statistic is taken from a study published in the latest issue of Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Quarterly. How reliable is this study?

Well, it’s not yet available online, so we can’t assess its conclusions at first hand. However, the study is part of the Mapping Shari’a project, and its stated aim is “to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers”. One of the authors is Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University who served for 25 years in the IDF’s military intelligence directorate. The other is David Yerushalmi.

So, probably not entirely reliable.

Update:  See Richard Bartholomew’s comments at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 6 June 2011

Update 2:  Kedar and Yerushalmi’s article is now available online here.

Showdown over Sharia at conservative conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

You may recall the spat within the US Right back in January when mad Frank Gaffney, who has played a leading role in the promotion of anti-Sharia paranoia in the United States, claimed that the Conservative Political Action Conference had been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood with the assistance of right-wingers like anti-tax campaigner Grover Norquist.

Over at Religion Dispatches Sarah Posner reports on a discussion panel at this weekend’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington which featured a confrontation between Frank Gaffney and another conservative, Marshall Breger, who has been critical of Gaffney’s anti-Sharia scaremongering. Posner writes:

Ironically enough, the panel followed one on alleged anti-evangelical bigotry, though few if any seemed to grasp that irony, with the possible exception of Breger. He led off, reiterating his position that shari’ah is not the threat some of his fellow conservatives assert. The moderator, neo-conservative conspiracy theorist Kenneth Timmerman, cut Breger off when he tried to defend himself against Gaffney. Gaffney, who insisted that even conservatives fail to understand the threat of a political, legal, and military takeover by shari’ah, at one point shouted “Rubbish!” in reaction to Breger. Gaffney’s fear-mongering knows no bounds, as he asserted that “if we don’t wake up, we will soon be like Britain . . . or even Saudi Arabia.” He had support on the panel, too, with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erik Stakelback calling him “the Paul Revere of calling out the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The audience was clearly in Gaffney’s camp, with murmurs of approval and even amens. One woman said she was from Minnesota, where “we practically have a Muslim state,” and fretted that Rep. Keith Ellison, who is a Muslim, adopted a Scandanavian name to mask his Muslim identity. She asked about something she’d “heard” about a “Muslim flag” being raised over the White House; Gaffney affirmed her paranoia, saying, “it is certainly possible we’d have a Muslim flag flying over the White House.” After laying into others in the conservative movement and accusing Norquist of being a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer, Gaffney expressed hope that the Faith and Freedom Coalition would “take up the fight against shari’ah.”

Posner spoke to Marshall Breger afterwards. He accused US conservative leaders of not “clamping down on extremists on their side”, adding: “They should be saying it’s not American to oppose an entire religion.”

The rise of far-right parties in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The current issue of the New Internationalist features a useful article on the rise of the European far right by K. Biswas, who writes:

The success of many far-right parties is predicated on a significant public distrust of Muslims. Over half of Danes believe that Islam hinders social harmony; three-quarters of citizens from the former East Germany want to ‘seriously limit’ the practice of Islam; half of Britons associate Islam with terrorism; four in ten French people see Muslims living in their country as a ‘threat’ to their national identity; more than half of Austrians believe that ‘Islam poses a threat to the West and our familiar lifestyle’.

Even though Muslims in Europe originate from different parts of the globe – Turks in Germany, North Africans in France, Pakistanis in Britain – they are portrayed as a single monolithic block, unable to integrate into European society. The populist press has played its role in generating public fears of Muslims. In Britain, which has elected no far-right representatives into its national parliament, the Daily Express and Daily Star blare out hate-filled statements from their front pages on an almost daily basis, characterizing Muslims as a homogenous group hell-bent on undermining the British way of life. ‘Muslim Schools ban our culture,’ ‘Muslims get their own laws in Britain,’ ‘Sniffer dogs offend Muslims,’ ‘Muslims tell British – Go to Hell’.

‘The media have uncritically incorporated the idea that “Islam equals threat”, therefore Muslims are a threat,’ according to Liz Fekete, the Chair of Britain’s Institute of Race Relations. The media are ‘constantly looking for the extreme voice within the Muslim community, because it’s an easy peg to hang a story on. So if a small extremist sect that doesn’t have any legitimacy within the Muslim community is organizing a protest, it becomes the major framework for any public discussion on Muslims.’

A ‘poppy-burning’ demonstration on Remembrance Day by the little-known group Muslims Against Crusades attracted a handful of extremists to Kensington in West London, yet made the front page of many national newspapers.

Israeli deputy minister joins with Belgian far right to warn against ‘growing Islamisation of the West’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayoob Kara and Filip DewinterBelgian Jews reacted with surprise at news that a member of the Israeli government met this week with a leader of the Flemish extreme-right party Vlaams Belang in Antwerp.

Ayoob Kara, a Druze who is Deputy Minister for the Development of Galilee and the Negev, met with Filip Dewinter who hosted him in the Flemish parliament followed by a meeting with other European extreme-rightist politicians and a visit to the heavily Muslim populated area of Antwerp North. According to the Flemish party, the visit came several months after a visit of Dewinter in Israel.

At a joint press conference Dewinter explained the need to warn against the growing Islamization of the West.

The Israeli embassy reacted with surprise and embarrassment. An embassy spokesperson told the Joods Actueel weekly magazine published in Antwerp: “We have learned about the visit through the press, we were not aware of this visit.”

He insisted that this was a private visit by Ayoob Kara, which was later confirmed by Mark Regev, spokesman of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Deputy Kara is in Belgium in his personal capacity and his visit does not reflect government policy,” said Regev.

But the local Jewish community says the visit risks to severely embarrass the community and Israel. “This visit is very damaging for us,” said Michael Freilich, editor in chief of Joods Actueel.

He said: “Israel and the Jewish community are not at war with Islam, we are at war with extremists, and that’s a quite a different thing. Singling out a religion, as the Vlaams Belang does, inevitably brings back dark memories of a not too distant past where it was Jews who were persecuted because of their religion. Is this the message we want to send to Europe? That Israel follows the racist ideology of Europe’s most notorious bigots?”

The Jewish community also stressed that it was precisely the Vlaams Belang party that proposed last month a bill in the Belgian Senate calling for amnesty for Belgian collaborators of the Nazis during WWII.

EJP, 4 June 2011