“Muslim groups in the town where the Stockholm suicide bomber lived have been handed more than £550,000 of taxpayers’ money to combat extremism but have failed to tip off police about a single terror suspect.”
The Daily Mail seizes the opportunity to combine hostility towards public spending and Muslims in a single article.
ENGAGE reports that the Charity Commission has published the results of its investigation into Muslim Aid, and that it “found no evidence of irregular or improper use of the Charity’s funds or any evidence that the Charity had illegally funded any proscribed or designated entities”.
The investigation was prompted by Andrew Gilligan’s Dispatches programme broadcast in March this year. Needless to say, Gilligan is deeply unhappy that the Commission rejected his accusations against Muslim Aid as “unsubstantiated”. But you’d have thought Gilligan would be used to this sort of thing by now. Back in 2004 he was forced to resign from the BBC after the Hutton Inquiry found his accusations against Alastair Campell to be “unfounded”. And then there was Gilligan’s Evening Standard witch-hunt of Lee Jasper in the run-up to the May 2008 London Mayoral election. In July that year Boris Johnson’s Tory-dominated Forensic Audit Panel published its report which found that Jasper’s actions “did not breach any rules or protocols”. Are you beginning to see a pattern emerging here?
The only thing Gilligan seems to have learned from his sacking by the BBC was to frame his accusations in weasel words that would block a successful libel action by his victims. Hopefully that won’t be sufficient to prevent Muslim Aid suing him.
Update: See also “Charity Commission rejects criticism over Muslim Aid investigation”, Third Sector, 20 December 2010
Nick Griffin’s website carries a report from Preston BNP member Tony Bamber who, the introduction states, was “asked by Nick Griffin MEP to represent him and the British National Party at one of Europe’s largest protests against multiculturalism which was held in Salem a suburb of the Swedish capital Stockholm”.
The Netherlands could ban the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women, as soon as next year, Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders told Reuters in an interview Thursday.
Wilders’ populist Freedom Party is the third largest in parliament and provides crucial support to the minority ruling coalition in exchange for the government taking a tougher line on Islam and immigration from non-Western countries.
His party has grown in popularity largely because of his outspoken criticism of Islam, which he describes as “a violent ideology.”
“There are not too many people who are willing to fight for this cause. It’s a big responsibility. It’s not only a Dutch problem, it’s a problem of the West,” said Wilders.
He has been charged with inciting hatred against Muslims for comparing Islam to Nazism. The case is due to start over again following a request for new judges.
“We are not a single issue party but the fight against a fascist ideology Islam is for us of the utmost importance,” said Wilders, who argues his comments about Islam are protected by freedom of speech.
Wilders said immigration from Muslim countries “is very dangerous to the Netherlands. We believe our country is based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism, and we believe the more Islam we get, the more it will not only threaten our culture and our own identity but also our values and our freedom.”
The burqa ban, which his party agreed as part of a pact with the minority coalition, is due to come into force within four years and possibly as soon as next year or 2012, he said.
With no clear winner in the elections in June, Wilders emerged as a kingmaker and won considerable influence for his Freedom Party over government policy. He promised support for the minority Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition in return for a tougher line on Islam and immigration, especially from non-Western, or predominantly Muslim countries.
Arson is the suspected cause of a serious fire at one of Europe’s largest halal-certified poultry processing facilities.
A spokesman or Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service told FoodManufacture.co.uk that crews attended Gafoor Halal Products on Fletcher Road, Preston in the early hours of Monday morning when the premises were locked up with no staff onsite.
“A couple of fire engines attended the site at 12.15am on Monday morning, and our crews were there about an hour,” he said. “About 100 wooden pallets (from a stack of 800) were damaged, and we suspect arson; that’s the route we’re going down via a joint investigation with Police.”
When the initial emergency call was made, the spokesman said that trees were engulfed behing Gafoor’s multi-million pound facility.
The Republican who will head the House committee that oversees domestic security is planning to open a Congressional inquiry into what he calls “the radicalization” of the Muslim community when his party takes over the House next year.
Representative Peter T. King of New York, who will become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was responding to what he has described as frequent concerns raised by law enforcement officials that Muslim leaders have been uncooperative in terror investigations.
Mr. King’s proposal comes amid signs that deep anxieties about Muslims persist in the United States nine years after the 9/11 terror attacks and an outcry this year over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York City.
Told of Mr. King’s plan, Muslim leaders expressed strong opposition, describing the move as a prejudiced act that was akin to racial profiling and that would unfairly cast suspicion on an entire group.
Writing at ConservativeHome, Paul Goodman claims that the Quilliam Foundation has had its Home Office funding withdrawn and consequently is “laying off some 80 per cent of its staff”. Shame it’s not 100 per cent is all I can say. Unfortunately, Quilliam are “still receiving some Foreign Office funding”, according to Goodman. Still, looking on the bright side, Goodman does state that the organisation is “effectively closing”.
In connection with the so-called March for Free Expression back in 2006 (it was in fact a poorly attended static demonstration in Trafalgar Square, the purpose of which was to defend the “freedom” of the right-wing Danish paper Jyllands-Posten to publish racist anti-Muslim cartoons) Harry’s Place informs us that “huge effort was put by the organisers into ensuring that Nazis did not attend”. Consequently, “when it was attacked by Bob Pitt, it was able to squash his lies”.
It would be interesting to know what this “huge effort” the MFE organisers made to deter the far right consisted of. The BNP made it clear in advance that they supported the MFE and intended to send a contingent from their front organisation, Civil Liberty, to the Trafalgar Square event – but, apart from indicating that they didn’t want the BNP joining them, the MFE organisers appear to have made no serious attempts to counter this. The BNP later reported that 40 of its members had participated in the MFE (out of a total attendance of about 300), and having witnessed the protest I can confirm that the fascists were allowed to distribute their literature unhindered in any way by the MFE organisers.
Some MFE supporters saw the presence of the BNP as a welcome sign of the political breadth of the protest. Johann Hari noted approvingly that “communists mingled awkwardly with fascists” in Trafalgar Square. Another MFE supporter wrote to Tribune rejecting the National Assembly Against Racism’s criticism of fascist involvement in the demonstration: “Everyone was welcome to the rally regardless of their political or other allegiance. That is exactly how it should be…. Free speech cannot be abandoned on the basis of demagogic ‘anti-racist’ demands from self-appointed groups.”
However, other MFE supporters adopted the position of denying that the BNP were there at all. Peter Tatchell, who is of course regarded as a bit of a hero over at Harry’s Place, assured Comment is Free readers: “Contrary to the lies and scaremongering of the far left, there was no BNP presence at Saturday’s rally.” Tatchell’s sidekick, Harry’s Place blogger Brett Lock, took the same line. “Fascists don’t believe in freedom of expression,” he wrote, “and thus were explicitly banned from the march.”
If Harry’s Place want to denounce people for telling lies about the March for Free Expression, they would be advised to look a little closer to home.
A third attack on Muslim graves in a Leeds cemetery in nine months is being treated as “mindless racial vandalism” by police. Detectives probing the damage to 24 graves at Harehills Cemetery on Sunday night are now combing CCTV footage.
Numerous name plaques were ripped from grave marker posts and a headstone was pushed over. Other grave marker posts were pulled up and strewn about causing great distress to relatives and friends of the buried.
After the second attack on Muslim graves in September police installed covert CCTV cameras to deter further damage and that footage is being examined by North East Leeds CID and further forensic work carried out.
Yorkshire Post, 14 December 2010
The first attack on the cemetery took place in March this year.
ENGAGE has written to the Jewish Chronicle to complain about Martin Bright’s report on ENGAGE’s relations with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia. They state:
“It is the machinations of journalists like Martin Bright who have through their disreputable work sought to advance the ‘good (apolitical) Muslim’/’bad (politically active) Muslim’ dichotomy that has created a situation in which Muslims who challenge and demur from the sham discourse on ‘Islamism’ are derisively treated and cast beyond the pale. It will be a long time before we take lessons on democratic engagement and widening the parameters of political participation from individuals like Martin Bright and we will continue to work to empower British Muslims to actively participate in our politics and media.”
The JC‘s enthusiasm for discrediting politically active Muslims is of course not unconnected with the fact that politically active Muslims are almost all supporters of the Palestinian cause. The importance the JC attaches to this issue is demonstrated by the fact that they not only offered Martin Bright a job, but even went so far as to invent the new position of political editor specifically for him. The one qualification for this post that Bright possessed – he had not previously shown any other expertise in reporting issues affecting the Jewish community – was his obsessive hostility towards political Islam.
Incidentally, Bright wrote to us last week to complain about our coverage of his JC report on ENGAGE and the APPG on Islamophobia. “You again describe me as an Islamophobe”, he wrote. “This is highly defamatory and inaccurate. You produce no evidence to back up your claim. I would appreciate if you removed this from your site immediately.”
As it happens, in that particular post we didn’t actually accuse Bright of being an Islamophobe. He just didn’t take the time to read the article properly. But Bright does have a sore spot when it comes to accusations of Islamophobia. Last year he threatened ENGAGE with legal action after they published a piece accusing him of being an Islamophobe. In response, I wrote:
“I can remember Bright telling a FOSIS conference at City Hall back in August 2005 that he had no problem being described as an Islamophobe – because, he said, there is a lot in Islam to be afraid of. He got himself booed, as you might expect. Around a hundred people were at the conference, so there is no lack of witnesses who can attest to this.”
I’ve consulted others who were present at that conference and I didn’t get it exactly right. Bright in fact told the FOSIS conference that he couldn’t see anything wrong with Islamophobia – because there is a lot in Islam to be afraid of. As I noted, he was roundly booed and a number of people criticised his remarks. In reply to the discussion, Bright did apologise and said he was in fact a great admirer of Islam.
If Bright thinks that made everything all right, he should perhaps consider what the response would have been if he had told a UJS conference that he saw nothing wrong with antisemitism because it was legitimate to have a fear of Judaism. Would have have been forgiven if he had followed this with an apology and claimed that some of his best friends were Jewish?
One thing is for certain – there’s no way he would have been offered his present cushy job at the Jewish Chronicle.