Another scaremongering Express headline falls flat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Five arrested at nuclear plantThis was the banner headline in Wednesday’s Daily Express. The paper reported:

Anti-terror police were questioning five men last night amid fears of an Al Qaeda-inspired plot to attack the Sellafield nuclear plant. The suspects, in their 20s and believed to be of Bangladeshi origin, were caught filming at the highly sensitive site in Cumbria – 250 miles from their homes in London.

Armed police arrested the men on bank holiday Monday only hours after Osama Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan. The nuclear plant has been placed on high alert following Al Qaeda threats to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” in revenge for the terror chief’s death.

Last night police seized a small container of “suspicious material” at one of the suspects’ homes.

Predictably, the irresponsible media scaremongering produced this sort of response from EDL supporters, who take their line on Muslims and Islam directly from the tabloid press.

Yesterday BBC News reported that the arrested men had all been freed. ENGAGE asked the question: “what likelihood is there of proportional coverage by the media of the men being released without charge?”

The answer, of course, was none whatsoever. Buried at the bottom of page 7 in today’s issue of the Express we find a single paragraph which reads:

The five students who sparked an Al Qaeda terror alert near the Sellafield nuclear power station were there because of a satnav error. Rather than being terrorists avenging the death of Osama Bin Laden, the Bangladeshis from London were enjoying a picnic on Monday after putting CA20 in the satnav instead of CA12 for a hike on Scafell Pike, Cumbria, England’s highest peak. They were freed without charge.

Muslim police officer was assaulted as EDL gatecrashed mosque meeting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel_OdlingAn off-duty policeman was slapped in the face after asking non-Muslim gatecrashers to leave a private meeting about the Lincoln mosque, a court heard. Daniel Odling [pictured], 26, is on trial accused of religiously aggravated threatening behaviour, alongside a 17-year-old man charged with assaulting PC Rizwaan Chothia, again religiously motivated.

Lincoln Magistrates’ Court heard a group of six or seven men entered the Grandstand, in Carholme Road, where 30 to 40 Muslims were gathered on July 9 last year. The meeting was to discuss the next steps for a new place of worship after Lincoln Islamic Association’s application for a mosque in Boultham Park Road was rejected. The uninvited group turned up following publicity about the event.

Continue reading →

Mosque bombing suspect shot dead in confrontation with FBI in Oklahoma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A St. Johns County man wanted in the bombing of a Jacksonville mosque was shot and killed Wednesday when he pulled a weapon as agents tried to serve an arrest warrant in northwest Oklahoma, FBI officials said.

Sandlin Matthew Smith, 46, was suspected of setting off a pipe bomb at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida nearly one year ago.

Investigators said Smith had been on the run for the last few days after acquaintances of Smith, both in northeast Florida and out of the area, tipped them off that he was involved in the mosque bombing and was in Oklahoma.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Wescott said agents learned late Tuesday that Smith was staying in a tent in a park in the rugged foothills of the Glass Mountains, near Fairview, in northwest Oklahoma.

“During the overnight hours, the Oklahoma City FBI SWAT team, along with the assistance of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, set up a perimeter around the area,” Wescott said.

Agents said that Smith refused to surrender and pulled out a firearm. Agents opened fire and killed Smith, FBI officials said. The agents involved weren’t injured.

Wescott said Smith was carrying an AK-47 when he was killed. Authorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb at the scene, and shrapnel from the blast was found a hundred yards away.

Smith was facing several federal charges, including damage to religious property and possession of a destructive device, in connection with the May 10, 2010, bombing.

WJXT Jacksonville, 4 May 2011

It will be interesting to see how much attention this case receives on, say, Fox News. Considerably less than if it had been a Muslim suspected of carrying out a bombing who had been shot by the FBI, I’ll bet.

Wilders brings his message of hate to Canada

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders extremistGeert Wilders has made his name as one of the world’s most outspoken opponents of Islam. The controversial Dutch parliamentarian does not hate Muslims, he’s famously said, but he does hate Islam. His colourful political career has been driven by a belief that the Koran encourages violence, that moderate Islam is an impossibility, that the Netherlands is in the process of being Islamicized, and that immigrants from Muslim countries must be stopped.

Next week, Mr. Wilders will bring his message to Canada, a country he says faces the same prospects of being Islamicized as his own. On Monday, Mr. Wilders is the marquee speaker at an invitation-only event hosted by the International Free Press Society and the Canada Christian College.

“Geert Wilders has a warning for Canada, and his warning is about a lack of free speech here and the threat of demographic jihad,” said Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College. “We’re all for freedom of religion, but when its mission is a hostile takeover, well that’s a different story. Islam is not just a religion, it’s a political and cultural system as well and we know that Christians, Jews and Hindus don’t have the same mandate for a hostile takeover. Here in Canada there is a real, clear and present danger. And we’re not even allowed to say anything about it. That’s what Geert Wilders is going to talk about.”

Members of the Toronto Muslim community say they were unaware of any planned hostile takeover and dismiss Mr. Wilders as racist and ill-informed.

National Post, 5 May 2011

It’s a shame that the event will be restricted to Wilders’ supporters. Otherwise there would have been an opportunity to ask the Dutch racist and his hosts why the right to “free speech” they claim to be defending doesn’t apply to Wilders’ critics back in the Netherlands. (See here, here and here.)

Victoria: minister defends multiculturalism, migrants and right to wear veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim women who choose to wear the face-covering burqa should be entitled to do as they pleased, says Victoria’s multicultural affairs minister.

Nick Kotsiras has also praised the Sudanese community who have come under scrutiny in the aftermath of outbreaks of street brawling after a youth beauty pageant last month. ”We have not got a Sudanese problem in Australia – or in Melbourne. There are 8000 Sudanese living in Victoria, the vast majority are hard-working, law-abiding citizens ” he told The Age.

In a spirited defence of cultural diversity, Mr Kotsiras said isolated incidents of violence were not an example of social disharmony brought on by the latest arrivals from Africa. And while those who broke the law should be punished, ”you cannot say it’s all the community’s fault”.

Weighing into the international debate on banning burqas, taken up by some of his federal Coalition colleagues, Mr Kotsiras said: ”If a person wishes to wear the burqa, then they should be allowed to wear the burqa. I don’t believe that someone should be forced to wear any particular item of clothing, but that’s across all cultures. If someone wants to wear [a burqa], I can’t see what the problem is.”

Mr Kotsiras, who arrived here as a child migrant from Greece in the early 1960s with no English, acknowledged that all new waves of settlers to Australia faced challenges relating to issues such as jobs and youth.

But he hoped an initiative in the state budget for a new unit within the Premier’s Department to help co-ordinate policies for new refugees and migrants across local, state and federal governments would identify service gaps. ”We open our arms to new migrants but now it is about helping them resettle in a new country,” said Mr Kotsiras, who is also the Minister for Citizenship.

A tendency of new arrivals to congregate in certain suburbs such as Dandenong or St Albans should not be characterised as creating ”ethnic ghettos”, Mr Kotsiras said.

”That’s an appalling term,” he said. ”There is absolutely no such thing as ghettos; people will live where they’ve got friends, where they’ve got jobs, where they’ve got a support base.” Mr Kotsiras cited his own experience arriving with his family: ”We went to Fitzroy because of the support base … and relatives. Where else would you expect us to go and live?”

The Age, 6 May 2011

College rejects call to drop anti-Muslim speaker

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim civil-rights organization, along with religious leaders from a dozen area places of worship, has asked Everett Community College to cancel Thursday afternoon’s talk by a writer they portray as holding racist views.

Everett officials say they’re not planning to make any changes to the program, which features Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum and contributing writer of a blog called “Jihad Watch.” Ibrahim’s appearance is “consistent with the belief that students be exposed to a variety of views,” said John Olson, Everett vice president for college advancement.

But the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several local religious leaders said they fear Ibrahim’s views could incite violence against Muslims.

“Everything Mr. Ibrahim has done in his career seems to have the single-minded focus of portraying Islam and Muslims as evil, deceitful, conspiring to take over the world, and … feeding the perpetual questioning and mistrust of their presence in the West,” reads the letter by Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington chapter of CAIR. The letter is signed by Bukhari and 58 others.

Seattle Times, 4 May 2011

Police officers claim compensation for assault by EDL thugs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Eight officers drafted in from a neighbouring force are claiming compensation from Staffordshire Police after being injured in an English Defence League protest.

They have lodged the insurance claims after being among 66 officers brought in from West Mercia Police to help control the Hanley march. It is believed two of the officers were knocked unconscious after the eight colleagues were attacked near McDonald’s in Parliament Row.

Staffordshire Police Federation chairman Andy Adams, who policed the protest, said: “The officers’ police van was surrounded and attacked. The officers were injured. They obviously feel very strongly about what happened.”

He added: “Lots of other officers got assaulted and pushed around and the crowd was stealing officers’ helmets and hats. There were lots of minor assaults that officers wouldn’t even contemplate claiming for, but what happened to the West Mercia officers could have been fatal.”

In total, 40 officers were injured in the protest staged in January, 2010.

The Sentinel, 4 May 2011

‘Where is your god now?’ police shouted as they beat up Muslim terrorism suspect

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Babar-AhmadA computer expert who is awaiting extradition to the United States to face terrorism charges, was beaten up by police officers during a dawn raid on his home, a London court was told on Wednesday.

Officers wearing helmets and protective clothing punched and violently assaulted Babar Ahmad, a Muslim, and mocked his religion after smashing their way into his south London house in December 2003, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Four of the officers from London’s Territorial Support Group (TSG) are accused of assaulting Ahmad during the arrest which was made on behalf of the counter-terrorism branch.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said that before the raid, the officers were briefed that Ahmad had received terrorism training and had fought overseas in support of holy war, the Press Association reported.

Ahmad was never charged in relation to his arrest but is in custody awaiting extradition to America for alleged terrorism offences. British courts have granted the extradition but Ahmad appealed and the case has not yet been resolved.

Laidlaw said the police had feared Ahmad would resist during the raid on his home but in fact he had remained submissive. “Dressed only in his pyjamas and barefooted, Mr Ahmad raised his arms above his head to indicate that he was not going to fight or to present any sort of danger or threat to the police,” he told the court. However, one officer threw himself at Ahmad, knocking him against a bedroom window, which smashed. Shouting and swearing, the officers then punched and beat him to the floor.

He was handcuffed and, despite being restrained, the assaults continued, Laidlaw said, before Ahmad was taken downstairs to his prayer room and put in a Muslim prayer position. Officers then asked “Where is your god now?,” the court heard. Ahmad was then put in a police van where the assaults continued until he was driven to a police station.

“There was more punching, further pulling up and pressure being applied by the manhandling of the handcuffs and Mr Ahmad was held in headlocks. The taunting and verbal abuse also continued,” Laidlaw said. When the victim arrived, battered and bruised, at the station, the defendants pretended he had violently resisted. “It was a lie that all four defendants persist with to this day,” Laidlaw said.

The four accused are police constables Mark Jones, Roderick James-Bowen and Nigel Cowley, and Detective Constable John Donohue. They deny the charge and the trial continues.

Reuters, 4 May 2011

Teacher disciplined over comment to Muslim student

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HOUSTON — The death of Osama bin Laden is related to an investigation of a teacher at Clear Brook High School. The teacher is accused of making a racially insensitive comment to a student in front of the entire class.

A Friendswood mom says she was offended by what her daughter says happened Monday in ninth grade algebra.

She said, “The teacher told the student that ‘I bet you’re grieving.’ And she basically looked at him and said what are you talking about? And he said I heard about your uncle’s death and she said wow, because she understood that he was referring about Osama bin Laden being killed and was racially profiling her.”

The remark was made to a classmate, an American-born girl of Muslim faith. It happened at Clear Brook High School in the Clear Creek Independent School District. The mom wanted to speak out about the incident but wanted us to protect her identity, saying she doesn’t want any retaliation against her daughter or the girl who experienced the inappropriate comment.

The mother said, “The student ended up crying over what was said to her by the teacher and the teacher asked her why she was crying and another student said it was because of what you said earlier. And his response was, oh, OK, and just kind of smirked and giggled and walked away.”

The Clear Creek school district was quick to respond, confirming what was said and issuing a prepared statement.

In the Clear Creek Independent School District, we believe diversity strengthens our community and seek opportunities to celebrate the different cultures within our schools and neighborhoods. The sentiments allegedly shared by this teacher are not reflective of the staff at Clear Brook High School or anyone within the Clear Creek Independent School District. In accordance with CCISD policy, the teacher has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a personnel investigation.

The student did the right thing and immediately notified an adult regarding the teachers’ comments. The principal at Clear Brook High School notified the child’s parents and has been in communication with the family. – Elaina Polsen, Director of Public Information, Clear Creek Independent School District

ABC, 3 May 2011