The Peter King hearing is a showcase for the cottage industry of conspiracy theories about Muslim destabilisation of America, Sarah Posner argues.
Belgium: school network may decide on headscarf ban, court rules
Belgium’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the official Flemish Community schools network has the right to decide for itself whether the Moslem headscarf or other religious symbols may be worn in their schools. However, it is another body, the Council of State, which will have the final say.
The matter came to a head after a school in Antwerp banned the wearing of the headscarf on its premises two years ago. The matter resurfaced at the beginning of last school year following controversy about a ban in two Antwerp schools. The Flemish Community schools authority then decided on a blanket ban on the wearing of ideological symbols in all its schools. The ban is set to become operational on 1 September 2011.
A year ago the Council of State suspended the introduction of the ban. Before making a ruling the Council wanted to learn whether it had the jurisdiction to rule in such a matter. The Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that this was the case.
Tuesday’s ruling does not change anything to the present situation in Flemish Community schools, but it does give the Council of State the authority to take a decision.
East End Gay Pride march cancelled
East End Gay Pride has been cancelled, the organisers have announced. In a statement this morning, they blamed “personal attacks” and a “personal vendetta” against them by local gay campaigners.
The march was due to be held on April 2nd as a response to anti-gay stickers plastered around London’s East End. But it quickly became controversial, as local groups Rainbow Hamlets and Out East accused the march of being a front of the English Defence League (EDL) and claimed that it would cause tensions between gay people and Muslims in the area.
Yesterday, one organiser, Raymond Berry, resigned after gay Muslim group Imaan revealed he had been a founding member of the EDL, a far-right group. Imaan said it was about to publish evidence to show that other organisers had “right wing and fascistic associations”, although organiser Mark Bourne said that they were simply “patriotic”.
This morning, gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell called for the march to be postponed and said he was withdrawing his support for it. Pride London had supported the march but said yesterday it had been “misled” by Mr Berry, who had not declared his past support for the controversial group.
Anti-Islam MP fails to block Amsterdam trial
A trial against Dutch MP Geert Wilders for hatemongering can go ahead after objections were brushed aside by the Public Prosecutor.
Mr Wilders’ lawyer Bram Moszkowicz had argued that his client was being accused of far more than was included in the formal charges, which mention hatemongering, discrimination and insulting a section of the population, public broadcaster NOS reports.
Roberta Moore and Stephen Lennon kiss and make up
You may recall that a few weeks ago the English Defence League leadership had a bit of a falling out with the EDL Jewish division over the latter’s decision to ally itself with the far-right Jewish Task Force whose leader, Victor Vancier, served a five-year prison sentence in the US for a 1980s bombing campaign waged in protest against the treatment of Soviet Jews.
At that time the EDL – or more precisely Helen (“Muslims are total scum bags“) Gower, head of the EDL admin team – issued a stern warning to Jewish division leader Roberta Moore:
“A member of the Jewish Division this week decided to link herself with terrorist organisation JTF. This was the decision and wishes of one single individual within the EDL, and does not mean that the EDL is linked with this movement. If they continue with their plans to forge links with the terrorist JTF, the EDL will have no option but to sever its links with the Jewish division as we cannot support terrorist sympathisers.”
But hey, why let a minor matter like support for a convicted terrorist sour relations between the EDL and its Jewish division? Earlier today Roberta Moore reported on the Jewish division’s Facebook page that friendly co-operation has now been re-established with Tommy Robinson (Stephen Lennon) and Kevin Carroll, the joint leaders of the EDL:
“I went to a meeting with Tommy, Kevin and others of our counter-jihad group yesterday and it was great! We were filming a documentary for the Australian TV which will be shown on Sunday. After the filming we had a meeting to discuss our goals, tactics and the future of our country. I am very excited because the things we agreed last night were nothing like we have done before!”
And what of the EDL leaders’ statement threatening to break with the Jewish division over its terrorist links? According to the Jewish division, “some people ‘suggested’ it, but these were facebook admins and not the real leadership”. In any case, Moore adds, “the statements were removed over a month ago”. And she’s right, the EDL statements criticising the Jewish division have indeed disappeared.
What next? Will the EDL be rescinding its decision to sever connections with the English Nationalist Alliance? If the Jewish division is allowed to continue its assocation with a convicted terrorist, it is difficult to see why the ENA’s “links with Nazi groups like Combat 18 and Redwatch” should be an obstacle to further co-operation with the EDL. Particularly so, given that Moore herself is a founding committee member of the ENA and so far as we know still holds the post of “Co Chairperson, Political Liaison” in that organisation.
Update: See also “The EDL has closer links to terrorism than 99.999% of British Muslims”, Exposing the English Defence League, 16 March 2011
Fox falls for ‘Islamic ban on padded bras’ hoax
A Fox News website has picked up a hoax story about an Islamic council in Pakistan protesting the use of padded and colorful bras and presented it as fact.
The story was illustrated with a picture of a woman’s mid-section and carried the headline “Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as ‘Devil’s Cushions’.” The lead of the Fox Nation story, which sources the piece to the Indian news website sify.com, reads:
“The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan has protested the use of padded and colourful bras by Muslim women, and recommended that Pakistani Muslim researchers should try to invent an innerwear that makes female assets unnoticeable.”
The problem is, if one takes the time to track the story back to its source, the whole thing is an obvious Onion-style satire – a fact first pointed out by Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog.
Fox Nation is an openly conservative news and opinion aggregation site that is part of the Fox News network. It’s not clear what sort of editorial standards are applied to the site, which carries a mixture of hard news and catnip for conservative readers (sample headlines: “Democrats politicize tsunami” and “The President’s afternoon: A round of golf”).
Fox Nation commenters, for their part, reacted to the bra story with outrage. “If I was a woman – anywhere in the world, I’d be taking a close look at Islam and what it meant for me,” wrote commenter rebubinca.
A “louisiana_mom” replied: “How can anyone in their right mind defend this religion/cult is beyond me. The silence of NOW and other women’s rights organizations speak volumes as to where their true loyalties are (and it is not for the rights for women). I cannot believe anyone in the 21st century would even entertain the thought of allowing Sharia Law into any Western county.”
Understanding Islamophobia
In a piece for the Ballots & Bullets blog on the University of Nottingham website Matthew Goodwin, author of the forthcoming book New British Fascism: The Rise of the BNP, draws our attention to his exchange of views with former Tory MP Paul Goodman at the ConservativeHome blog, which began with Goodwin’s defence of Baroness Warsi and moved on to a more general discussion of Islamophobia and the views British Muslims (see here, here, here and here).
As anyone reading through this debate will find, Matthew Goodwin’s analysis proves superior to Goodman’s in two respects. He actually knows what he’s talking about, and he’s not an anti-Muslim bigot.
Ban the Muslim veil, says Dutch MP
MP Jeanine Hennis from the ruling free-market liberal party VVD is calling for a ban on wearing Muslim headscarves by public servants. The politician says that all religions are equal in her eyes and that the ban should include all religious symbols.
Ms Hennis made her comments in an interview with freesheet De Pers. “When do you wear the headscarf? I’d like to instigate a debate on the matter – an open discussion on the separation between church and state,” she said. The VVD MP said she’d also like universities and schools to participate in the debate but that the Christian parties stand in the way of bringing the subject into the open. “They regard it as an infringement on freedom of religion,” she added.
See also Dutch News, 15 March 2011
Islamophobia by PowerPoint
Julie Ingersoll reports on a Tea Party-sponsored presentation by one William J. Federer, author of What Every American Needs To Know About the Qur’an.
Mideast expert: Fox News panders to Muslim-bashers
John Esposito talks to Media Matters.