Attacks on multiculturalism linked to economic crisis, IRR study finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) publishes today Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism – a detailed analysis by Executive Director, Liz Fekete, of key speeches made over the past six months by leading centre-right politicians from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

These speeches attack multiculturalism and immigration and link them to the economic crisis. The IRR finds that:

  • In singling out multiculturalism as a threat to national identity, the leaders of Europe’s centre-right parties are using the same kind of rhetoric and specious arguments as Enoch Powell did forty years ago. Only this time, it is not one rogue European politician carrying the flag, but the leaders of centre-right parties now replacing race and immigration with culture and religion as the watch words.
  • As multiculturalism becomes code for discussing the ‘Muslim problem’, the language, terms and metaphors used by centre-right politicians subtly (and in some cases crudely) convey a sense of national victimhood, of a majority culture under threat from Muslim minorities and new migrants who demand special privileges and group rights and refuse to learn the language.

In Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalismthe IRR warns that:

  • The attacks on multiculturalism are taking place at a time of economic crisis and swingeing cuts, when politicians are desperate to deflect public anger and explain societal break down. The centre Right is establishing a narrative, with some centre-left parties following suit, to justify the biggest round of spending cuts since the 1920s, blaming the current economic crisis not on the bankers and global financial crisis, but on immigration, and on Muslims.
  • As the extreme Right increasingly enters national parliaments, sometimes holding the balance of power, there are dangerous signs that the centre Right is preparing for future power-sharing with the extreme Right, as well as nativist anti-immigration parties. The fact that mainstream politicians are now speaking to the fear and hatred promoted by the extremists’ anti-multicultural platform, is giving legitimacy to conspiracy theories about Muslims and to anti-Muslim hatred.

Read the IRR’s research Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism here.

IRR press release, 21 April 2011

Pope ‘plotter’ still traumatised after arrest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim plot to kill popeA street cleaner arrested on suspicion of plotting against the Pope last year has told the BBC he is still traumatised by his ordeal.

Last September, when the Pope was visiting London, Sami, who has asked the BBC not to use his full name for fear of reprisals, was one of six men arrested under anti-terrorism laws. The 26-year-old from Algeria was the youngest.

The men, all street cleaners for Westminster Council, were detained after a tip-off to police. All were released without charge less than two days later – police said they posed “no credible threat” to the Pope.

Sami is now considering legal action against the police for false imprisonment. He accepts the police had a duty to protect the public from any potential threat but says the affair has had a profound affect on him.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme through an interpreter, Sami said that when police first detained him he had no lawyer or interpreter and did not really understand what was happening.

“The first interview – yes, it was me alone,” he said. “I was there and was being subjected to all sorts of questioning. At one stage the person interrogating me started saying ‘If anything happens to the Pope, anything at all, then you will be held responsible.’ Until now I am still traumatised by what I was subjected to.

“I felt my entire world crumbling around me. And I felt this is the end of my life. I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that I started thinking about Guantanamo Bay – you know, being transported over there.”

Earlier this year, BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts programme reported on concerns that many negative newspaper stories about Muslims turn out to be untrue. Sami says he is shocked at the way one newspaper in particular distorted the facts.

The day after the men were arrested, under the headline “Muslim plot to kill the pope“, the front page of the Daily Express accused them of being “Islamic terrorists… with links to al-Qaeda”, plotting a “double blow to the infidel” by assassinating the head of the Roman Catholic Church and slaughtering hundreds of pilgrims and well wishers.

The Press Complaints Commission received numerous complaints about the paper’s coverage. But it is powerless to act because the Express group has withdrawn from the PCC. So Sami would have to go directly to the newspaper itself – and he is not confident of success.

“Of course I would like to make a complaint and the end goal for me would be like they alleged this against us – and me personally – on the front page: I would like them to reprint another front page saying ‘We got it wrong and we apologise’. I don’t think they will be fair.”

A report is due out in the next few weeks over whether the Metropolitan Police were justified in arresting the men. It is being carried out by the new independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC.

The Daily Express and Scotland Yard declined to comment.

BBC News, 19 April 2011

The ‘Islamification’ of Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scaremongering about the threat of “Islamification” facing the east London borough of Tower Hamlets has been popular in the right-wing press since Andrew Gilligan’s witch-hunting Channel 4 documentary Britain’s Islamic Republic was broadcast last year. Several papers this week have published articles on that theme.

Continue reading →

Carlisle United starts inquiry into claim that club stewards supported EDL protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Carlisle United have launched an investigation following reports that Brunton Park stewards were among supporters of the man jailed for burning the Koran.

Andrew Ryan, 32, of Summerhill, London Road, Carlisle, was sentenced to 70 days in prison for intentional religious/racial harassment on Monday. He arrived at the city magistrates’ court flanked by men waving the St George’s Cross and shouting nationalist chants.

The English Defence League Carlisle Division had put out a call for members to support Ryan. A group gathered to parade through the city centre with him, carrying a flag with “EDL” written on it. It also bore the scrawled message: “It’s our country, we are taking it back.”

Yesterday the News & Star received reports that some of the men were stewards at Brunton Park. The club has now launched an investigation into their identity. United spokesman Andy Hall said:

“We would like to thank the News & Star for bringing this to our attention. Having just received the images we now have to carry out a full investigation and we will, in due course, be able to comment further on our findings.

“As has been shown recently the club will not tolerate any form of racist behaviour and, in conjunction with the FA and Football League ‘Kick it Out’ campaign, we are working strenuously to ensure that this issue does not arise at the ground.

“However, it would be wrong of us to make any further comment on this specific incident until a full and thorough investigation has been completed.”

News & Star, 20 April 2011

CAIR: Georgia mosque targeted by hate vandalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate two apparently bias-motivated attacks on a Georgia mosque as hate crimes.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says vandals twice this month shattered doors and windows of the Islamic Center of Cartersville with rocks, one of which was reportedly painted with “Muslim murderers”. Local police are investigating the incidents and the FBI has been “asked to determine if the attacks fall under federal hate crime laws”.

“The hate message on a rock used to damage this mosque is a clear indication of a bias motive,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “State law enforcement authorities and the FBI should take whatever actions are necessary to protect the congregation’s right to worship without fear of attack.”

CAIR press release, 19 April 2011

Tennessee Muslims gather at state Capitol for hearing on anti-sharia bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hundreds of Muslims thronged the state Capitol Tuesday morning for a hearing on a bill that once targeted adherents to Islamic law.

Muslims from across the state packed a committee room and corridors to hear testimony a bill that supporters say would help Tennessee law enforcement stop terrorist plots but opponents believe targets Muslims by targeting their beliefs. The bill has since been amended to remove any references to Islam and Shariah, the basic set of Muslim religious laws that covers everything from the rules of warfare to inheritance.

But opponents said in brief testimony that the bill is inherently flawed because it was written by an Arizona organization that has been described as a hate group. They urged the House Judiciary Committee and the measure’s sponsors, House Speaker Pro Tempore Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, and state Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, to withdraw the bill.

“If a bill was written by the KKK, would you consider it even if it was amended?” said Sabina Mohyuddin, a youth coordinator at a Nashville mosque, who testified. “The intent of the bill remains the same.”

The Tennessean, 19 April 2011

Koran scholar Chuck Norris warns of creeping sharia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

WALLPAPER - CHUCK NORRISHappy Holy Week! This year, Walker Texas Ranger star and Internet meme Chuck Norris is celebrating things a little differently – by writing a special week-long series at WorldNetDaily on the dangers of creeping Islamic Sharia law in American society.

Norris, who wants to make clear that he is absolutely not an Islamophobe, warns that “where Muslim religion and culture has spread, Shariah law has shortly followed”:

Of course, many Americans watch on video a Middle Eastern woman allegedly caught in adultery, buried in the ground up to her head and being stoned to death, and think, “That could never happen in America.” But they fail to see how Shariah law has already been enabled and subtly invoked in our country, and that any such induction like it is brought about by understated lukewarm changes, like a frog boiled in a kettle by a slow simmer.

As proof of the slow boiling of the American frog, Norris cites three examples: A Florida judge ordering two Muslim parties to settle their dispute through Islamic arbitration, per the terms of their mutually agreed-upon contract; the push by various state legislators to ban Islamic law from state courts; and an Obama adviser telling a British audience that Sharia has been “oversimplified.” And that’s just in the last few months!

Of course, each of these points has its self-refuting flaws. Judges turn cases over to pre-selected religious arbitrators all the time, for instance, and not just for Muslims. None of the state legislators in question have produced a single example of Sharia being forced upon their states. And as for the argument that Sharia has been “oversimplified,” I would just point you to the fact that a quasi-mulleted martial arts actor from the mid 1990s feels qualified to explain to a national audience what Sharia is.

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones, 20 April 2011

Only 3 out of 249 EU terrorist attacks were carried out by Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The number of terrorist attacks recorded in the European Union last year dropped 21.2 percent to 249 compared with the previous year, the Europol police organisation said Tuesday.

“In 2010, 249 terrorist attacks were reported in nine member states,” killing seven people, it said in an annual report on terrorism within the 27-member bloc.

Most of these attacks, 160, were carried out by separatist groups and only three by Islamic groups, it added.

Middle East Online, 20 April 2011

Cf. David Cameron’s speech at the Munich security conference in February, in which he stated:

“… the biggest threat that we face comes from terrorist attacks … we should acknowledge that this threat comes in Europe overwhelmingly from young men who follow a completely perverse, warped interpretation of Islam, and who are prepared to blow themselves up and kill their fellow citizens.”

EDL youth facing jail over brawl

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joel_TitusA teenager from north-west London who is a prominent member of the English Defence League (EDL) is facing jail over his role in a pre-arranged fight between football hooligans.

Joel Titus, 18, [in centre of photo] took part in the bloody brawl between Brentford and Leyton Orient supporters outside Liverpool Street station in central London in May last year. The A-level student was captured on CCTV hurling objects at rivals and fighting over a wooden pole with another thug.

Titus had previously been cautioned for battery after punching a journalist at a right-wing demonstration against the “Islamification of Europe” in December 2009, the Old Bailey heard. Earlier this year he was found guilty of threatening behaviour after snarling “f*** off” at a police officer who tried to break up a fight.

He is reported to be a youth organiser for the EDL and has appeared on the BBC Newsnight programme talking about his role in protests.

Titus, of North View, Pinner, appeared in court alongside five other men, all of whom admitted a charge of affray at earlier hearings. All six were remanded in custody to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Press Association, 19 April 2011

Via Lancaster Unity

See also 24dash.com, 19 April 2011

Whether Titus is still involved in the EDL is questionable, but the fact is that he was earlier a key figure in the organisation, not least because his mixed-race origins were useful in deflecting attention from the reality that the EDL is made up overwhelmingly of white racists. The downside, from the standpoint of the rest of the EDL leadership, was that he also reinforced the image of their movement as a mob of drunken violent hooligans.

Update:  See “EDL member jailed for Liverpool Street football brawl”, BBC News, 20 April 2011

Joel Titus Harrow
Titus punching photographer Marc Vallée at a Stop Islamisation of Europe protest
outside Harrow Central Mosque in December 2009. (Photo: Jonathan Warren)