Drunk fined for racist abuse in kebab shop

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A drunk man screamed racist abuse at staff in his local takeaway after they refused to give him a free meal, a court heard. William McNeill also shouted “Al-Qaida” at workers in the kebab shop.

McNeill, 42, appeared for sentence at Livingston Sheriff Court yesterday. He had earlier pleaded guilty to acting in a racially aggravated manner and using racially offensive language towards restaurant worker Hazim Hashim on February 27 this year.

Sheriff Donald Muirhead fined McNeill £500. He told him: “The court has a job to teach people not to behave in a racially aggravated manner the way that you did.”

Scotsman, 18 March 2011

EDL stages anti-mosque protest in Reading

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL ReadingAround 200 members of the English Defence League came from across the country to demonstrate in Reading today (Saturday).

Members of the controversial group, which claims to oppose Muslim extremism, chanted and waved flags as they marched from the Three Guineas by Reading Station to Market Place, flanked by a heavy police presence.

They were greeted outside the Town Hall by around 50 demonstrators, who said the EDL were divisive, dangerous and not welcome in a multi-cultural, tolerant and united Reading. Edward Willis, 25, from Oxford Road, added: “We don’t tolerate or want them in our town, they are Nazis and fascists.”

Some EDL members said they were protesting against the building of the Oxford Road mosque and proposed east Reading mosque but others pointed to wider reasons, such as the building of mosques elsewhere in Britain, and called for more to be done to tackle Muslim extremism.

Among the EDL supporters was founder Tommy Robinson, from Luton, and a 38-year-old builder, from Oxford Road, who did not want to give his name but said he helped organise the protest. He described the Oxford Road mosque as an “absolute eyesore” and added: “We don’t want another one being built in east Reading.”

Reading Borough Council has released a statement condemning the “racist demonstration”. Council leader, Andrew Cumpsty, said: “We in Reading have excellent relations between our varied and vibrant communities. Hatred and division have no place in civilised political debate and I condemn the activities of this small minority. In Reading we celebrate all the varied parts of our town, as all together we are stronger and richer because of our diversity.”

Reading Chronicle, 19 March 2011

Update:  See also BBC News, 20 March 2011

Police sergeant found guilty of abusing Muslim colleague keeps his job

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gavin RossA police sergeant convicted of a race hate crime against a fellow officer has kept his job, The Herald can reveal.

Strathclyde’s Gavin Ross was fined £500 at Dunfermline Sheriff Court last year after being found guilty of racially abusing an Asian colleague at a Christmas night out. However, the licensing sergeant has been told he can continue at his current position and rank after an internal police misconduct hearing.

His victim, Sergeant Amar Shakoor, last night said he was “deeply disappointed” with the punishment meted out to Mr Ross, who has had to forgo an anticipated pay rise. Mr Shakoor, who is chairman of the Scottish Muslim Police Association, said:

“He has been dealt with leniently. People who have committed similar offences got the sack. The force is supposed to have a zero-tolerance attitude policy towards racism, islamophobia, sexism and homophobia, and they should stand by that. This decision does not instill confidence among minority officers or the community at large.”

The Strathclyde officers worked together at the Tulliallan police training college in Kincardine, Fife, until Mr Ross used a race slur against Mr Shakoor at a staff night out on December 10, 2009. Mr Ross denied making the remark but was overheard by another colleague at the dinner in the The Unicorn restaurant in Kincardine.

It was alleged he called Mr Shakoor a “f****** Muslim b******”. But Mr Ross claimed he had been misheard and actually said he was “a f****** amusing b******”. Mr Ross last year told Dunfermline Sheriff Court that he, as a gay man, would never make offensive remarks of that kind because he himself had been the victim of hate crimes.

News that Mr Ross had not been drummed out of the force – or even demoted – reverberated around Glasgow’s Muslim communities yesterday. Some leading opinion-formers in the community last night expressed surprise that action against Mr Ross had not been tougher.

The Herald, 17 March 2011

‘Radical Islam’ and the ‘radical far far left’ have formed an alliance based on antisemitism, claims Netanyahu

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took aim Thursday at what he called Europe’s “strange fusion” of radical Islam and the far left.

“There is a new boiling anti-semitism of radical Islam that sweeps Europe as a whole, and there’s a strange fusion – it’s the only word I can use to describe it – a fusion with the anti-semitism of the radical far far left,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight.

“This is the strangest union you could possibly contemplate,” he said, “because radical Muslims: they stone women, they execute gays, they are against any human rights, against feminism, against whathaveyou. And the far left is supposed to be for these things.”

Washington Times, 17 March 2011

Second fire in two days at Houston mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Clear Lake mosque fireNobody has been hurt in the second suspicious fire in as many days at a mosque in suburban Houston.

Arson investigators on Thursday night were called to the Clear Lake Education Center when some worshippers saw flames and smoke in the rear of the building.

Member Syed Mohiuddin told KTRK-TV that the structure serves as a prayer hall and mosque. Much of the damage was to the back of the complex. Nobody was injured.

Another fire was reported at the mosque on Wednesday. Mohiuddin says it’s “not an accident because somebody is doing it.” Investigators declined to say whether they believe the mosque has been targeted.

Associated Press, 18 March 2011

See also abc13.com, 18 March 2011

See “CAIR asks FBI to probe bias motive for Texas mosque fires”, CAIR press release, 18 March 2011

Resisting the Islamification of Alaska

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Alaskan lawmaker hopes to guard against Islamic Sharia law by prohibiting state courts from honoring foreign law that violates Alaskan or U.S. constitutional rights.

Though the bill’s language does not specifically target Sharia, Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, said the legislation is a reaction to what he sees as the growing use of international law codes in courts that have robbed people of their constitutional rights.

In a hearing before the House State Affairs Committee, Gatto’s chief of staff Karen Sawyer said Sharia is an example of the type of transnational law that has appeared in family law, divorce and child custody cases nationally, though she knows of instances of it appearing in Alaska courts.

“Sharia is clearly offensive to the U.S. Constitution,” Sawyer said. “It is the foremost foreign law that is impacting our legal system.” Sawyer added that countries following Sharia law do not allow freedom of religion or equal rights to women.

Gatto called the law a preventative measure necessitated by the religious beliefs of recent immigrants. “As a kid, we had Italian neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods … but they didn’t impose their own laws,” Gatto said. “When these neighborhoods are occupied by people from the Middle East, they do establish their own laws.”

Associated Press, 17 March 2011

See also “Alaska lawmaker smears American Muslims”, CAIR press release, 18 March 2011

EDL supporter sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man has been sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment for his part in the disturbance which occurred during the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism protests in the city centre.

Ryan Herbert (06/04/87) of Bland Road, New Parks, pleaded guilty at Leicester Magistrates Court last month to criminal damage to property and to a Section 4 public order offence. He was sentenced last week.

The incident happened on October 9, 2010, in Humberstone Gate East when damage was caused to windows at Fabrika Bar at the Arts Centre.

Leicestershire Constabulary news report, 17 March 2011

Sunday Telegraph sued over ‘extremist’ claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yahya_IbrahimAn Islamic preacher is demanding libel damages of up to £100,000 over a Sunday Telegraph story.

Yahya Ibrahim launched an action for defamation claiming the story suggested he was a proponent of terror who holds offensive, violently extreme and anti-Semitic beliefs. The story, headed “Hardline cleric banned in the US will preach to British universities” ran in the paper and online in January last year.

According to a writ filed with the High Court, Ibrahim says the story suggests he intended to preach his dangerous beliefs to students in the Yuk in a bid to radicalise them and turn them to violence. Ibrahim says he is a moderate teacher committed to religious tolerance, denies he holds radical views, and is opposed to violence.

After he complained by email, the writ claims, publishers Telegraph Media Group ran a short apology and changed the online version of the story. However, Ibrahim claims the article included defamatory allegations until April last year.

Ibrahim, who lives in Western Australia, claims he suffered acute embarrassment and distress, and argues that his personal and professional reputations were damaged by publication.

He also claims his distress was compounded by the paper’s solicitors who falsely accused him of having discriminatory and anti-Semitic views. The solicitors also tried to tarnish him by citing untrue and defamatory material from the internet to support their position, without any proper research, the writ claims.

Ibrahim is seeking aggravated damages, saying the paper ran the stories without checking the facts with him first or giving him the chance to comment, and then published a woefully inadequate and insulting apology in the print edition. He is also seeking an injunction banning repetition of the allegations at the heart of his legal battle.

Press Gazette, 16 March 2011

Via ENGAGE

The offending article, by Patrick Sawer and Philip Sherwell, which was published in the Sunday Telegraph on 24 January 2010, was a typical scaremongering piece about “extremist preachers” speaking at British universities.

The reliability of the article may be judged by the fact that the main source for the attack on Yahya Ibrahim was David Ouellette, formerly of the (now defunct) right-wing Zionist website Judeoscope, which specialised in portraying mainstream Muslim figures as dangerous extremists. Ouellette was quoted as saying that while Ibrahim was “widely considered as a ‘bridge builder’ between Muslims and non-Muslims” in Australia, he was in reality “a hard-core activist of the Wahhabi strain working to spread in the West the hateful, terror-inspiring Salafi ideology, the likes of whom should not be welcome in free societies fighting Islamic extremism”.

The article also quoted critics who had “called on the Government to take a tougher line on barring extremists from Britain”. Predictably, these critics were Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Paul Goodman.

San Diego woman denied flight blames King hearings for rising anti-Muslim sentiment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Irum AbbasiA San Diego Muslim woman wearing a headscarf who was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane at Lindbergh Field on Sunday has received several apologies from the airline and a voucher good for a free flight “as a gesture of goodwill”.

But the woman, Irum Abbasi, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy and civil rights group which has taken up her cause, said at a Wednesday morning news conference at Lindbergh Field that this event is a sign of a anti-Muslim sentiment spreading through the country.

A Pakistan native and U.S. citizen, Abbasi was removed from a flight to San Jose on Sunday after an attendant thought she heard her say “It’s a go” on her cell phone. Abbasi said she actually said “I’ve got to go” because the flight was ready to depart.

“I was in tears,” said Abbasi. “I have lived in the United States 10 years. I am a U.S. citizen.” While she was quickly cleared, Abbasi said she was told she could not re-board the flight because the crew was uncomfortable with her presence.

Abbasi and CAIR both link her ejection to last week’s controversial congressional hearing on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community” by Rep. Peter King, R-New York.

“Apart from the negative image it portrayed of the Muslim community in front of all the people at the airport, I strongly believe that this was a direct result of the hearings held by Peter King,” said Abbasi, a graduate student in experimental psychology at San Jose State who was returning there for a research project.

San Diego Union Tribune, 16 March 2011