US Muslim organisations play vital role in combating terrorism, report finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

US flagWith the volume of Islamophobia on the rise in the United States, a recent report prepared for Congress and new law enforcement data are shining fresh light on the significant role American Muslims play in foiling terrorist plots, particularly those of the domestic “homegrown” variety.

The report from the Congressional Research Service, sent to Congress with little fanfare on September 20, contends that soon after 9-11, American Muslims “recognized the need to define themselves as distinctly American communities who, like all Americans, desire to help prevent another terrorist attack” and explores how federal, state and local law enforcement organizations responded by tapping into American Muslims’ language skills, contacts, information and cultural insights.

CRS is a branch of the Library of Congress that conducts research on a confidential basis for members of Congress and committees. Its report was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists and released on September 24, but a CRS spokeswoman would not say who in Congress originally requested it.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has crunched FBI data, information in government press releases, and media reports on potential al Qaida-related plots and determined that since 9-11, Muslim Americans have helped thwart 11 al Qaida-related plots, nearly one-third of all such planned attacks that threatened the United States. (A vivid example of an American Muslim warning authorities of a problem: a Muslim was the first to report to law enforcement last May the suspicious vehicle in Times Square which turned out to be a dud car bomb.)

Ironically, the American Muslim community is simultaneously facing what seems to be a swelling wave of Islamophobia, fueled, in part, by specious rhetoric that fuses terrorism and Islam.

Salon, 29 September 2010

French right-wing group tries to organise anti-Islam ‘debate’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the political party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was forced on Tuesday to cancel a public debate organized in its headquarters, amid concerns that the debate would spark new accusations of racism and discrimination.

Titled “Immigration, Islamism: Is France Threatened?“, the controversial debate did not come at a good time for UMP, which is now presenting a new bill on immigration in the Assemblee Nationale (National Assembly), the lower house of French bicameral Parliament.

“We have chosen this time to really participate in Parliament discussions on future immigration law, as they are starting this week and will be at full intensity on that day,” explained the Droite Libre (Free Right), the UMP-associated group that organized the meeting.

“These issues are a concern to our fellow citizens, yet they almost never have a chance to discuss them; those who dare to mention immigration and Islam are framed by the intellectual terror of ‘political correctness’.”

When French media made public the title of the debate planned Sept. 30, UMP quickly stepped back and asked Droite Libre to hold the meeting in another place. Officially, said UMP, ultra-conservative Droite Libre is not a group associated with the presidential Party. This would not seem so from the Droite Libre website, which proudly bears the UMP logo.

“In view of the importance of our event and fears expressed by the UMP management board facing biased press reports, our debate will be hosted by the National Assembly,” Droite Libre announced later.

Epoch Times, 29 September 2010

It seems that the National Assembly doesn’t want to host the debate either. See Le Figaro, 29 September 2010

Netherlands: CDA and VVD agree deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The leaders of Dutch right-wing parties say they’ve concluded an agreement for a minority government supported by the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders.

Mark Rutte, head of the Liberal VVD party, announced the accord with the Christian Democratic Alliance and Wilders’ Freedom Party, which will back the government without sitting in the Cabinet. Together, they control 76 of parliament’s 150 seats.

The accord came 3 1/2 months after deadlocked parliamentary elections. Policy details of the alliance were not immediately released.

The accord Tuesday among the party leaders needs approval of the parties’ parliament members. Several members of the Christian Democrats have objected to a government that relies on the anti-immigrant Wilders for its survival.

Associated Press, 28 September 2010

See also Reuters, 28 September 2010

Upstate New York town wants local Muslims to dig up their cemetery

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sidney grave site

A town in upstate New York is trying to force a local Muslim religious community to dig up a small cemetery on its property and never bury anyone there again because it says it’s illegal.

“What we would not want is an unauthorized cemetery,” says Bob McCarthy, town supervisor of the Delaware County town of Sidney, population 5,993. “We’re taking care of a bunch of cemeteries, and they just came in and buried the bodies, and didn’t go through…there’s no funding there, it’s not a standard kind of deal, and it’s going to become a liability to the town.”

So what steps have the Muslims skipped? “I don’t know what the exact law is,” he says.

Which is the problem; because whether or not the town government likes it, there are no laws in Sidney – or New York state, for that matter – covering cemeteries on private land – religious cemeteries included. Plus, the town approved the cemetery in 2005.

This apparently isn’t stopping the town board. Town attorney Joseph Ermeti wouldn’t speak with us, but two other town officers indicated that in the absence of specific laws forbidding the cemetery, the town may try for a court order to force the Muslims to dig up the graves, based on a New York law against cemeteries on mortgaged land – a technicality that covers the Muslim site, sitting in a hillside glade no larger than a Manhattan studio apartment.

Shaykh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi, leader of the Sufi group – called Osmanlı Nakş-ı’bendi Hakkani Dergahı – says he just discovered the problem himself, and is correcting it – his options being to either subdivide the property to exclude the cemetery, or to pay off the mortgage, which is under $200,000.

In any event, whether a lawyer could convince a court that a 650-square foot cemetery on mortgaged property so offends the dignity of the law that it merits digging up bodies is the sort of fine distinction only a lawyer could love. Likewise, there’s the question of whether taking such a course is wise, since the town’s actions could attract all sorts of unwelcome attention – and possible civil rights lawsuits.

“Islamophobia is something we’re definitely aware of,” says James Mulvany, Deputy Commissioner of the New York Division of Human Rights.

Huffington Post, 27 September 2010

See Kamran Pasha, “Digging up Muslim graves”, also at the Huffington Post.

Posted in USA

Andrew Boff on the witch-hunt of Lutfur Rahman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur-RahmanLondon Assembly member Andrew Boff may be a member of the Tory Party but his stand against the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up against the East London Mosque has been exemplary – unlike some prominent Labour politicians we could mention.

Dave Hill’s London Blog has just posted Boff’s assessment of the controversy arising from Andrew Gilligan’s witch-hunt of the ELM and Islamic Forum Europe, which has resulted in the Labour Party NEC’s disgraceful decision to remove Lutfur Rahman, the democratically elected Labour candidate for the Tower Hamlets mayoral election, and replace him with Helal Abbas. We take the liberty of reproducing Andrew Boff’s comments here:

There are all different sorts of mosques, they all have their different views and they are all entitled to be involved in politics if they want. If they decide to keep themselves to themselves they’re accused of being insular, remote and frightening. If they engage with the wider community and try to become part of the dialogue they are accused of having sinister motives. They can’t win.

There are too many bloggers and others out there saying that the IFE’s involvement is all some sort of subversive plot. Some of these bloggers are supposed be centre-left, but they always come over with that sort of extreme shoutiness of the Daily Mail.

All this is just a distraction from the real story, which is that the fuss about Lutfur Rahman is really just the old Labour politics as usual – all the old arguments between grassroots and the unions, the leadership and the rank and file. The only difference is that in this case there are Bengali Muslims involved, and wouldn’t it be appalling if they weren’t? Wouldn’t it be appalling if all the decisions in Tower Hamlets were taken by white, middle-class people? The Conservative Party in Tower Hamlets has a very substantial Bengali membership and we’re very proud of that. We look like the place we represent. In Hackney it’s the Orthodox Jews who are accused of entryism, but we’ve got lots of black members too and no one accuses them of entryism.

People of faith have much to contribute and they shouldn’t be locked out. If you look at the East London Mosque, they’ve done fantastic work towards fostering a multi-faith dialogue in the borough. It’s an absolutely fantastic institution and we shouldn’t be turning our back. It seems we’re all in favour of multiculturalism as long as “they” all think the same way as “us”.

The thing about Lutfur Rahman, as far as I can see, is that he’s proved to be a very good Labour machine politician. Often people who live in boroughs that are always run by Labour aren’t very impressed by how they do things, but there’s this powerful party machine that gets the vote out at elections. He’s just got that machine working for him. As I understand it the allegations made against him aren’t going to be investigated [by the NEC]. For the Labour Party to allow itself to be portrayed as the victim of a Muslim plot in order to obscure the truth that it is fundamentally dysfunctional, could damage community relations in Tower Hamlets for many years to come.

It is not only community relations that will be damaged but also the Labour Party itself. It would be difficult to have come up with a more stupid, unprincipled and counterproductive decision than that taken by the Labour NEC in de-selecting Lutfur Rahman, through which they have demonstrated complete contempt for the democratic rights of Labour Party members and voters in Tower Hamlets.

Lutfur Rahman is now standing as an independent candidate. This member of the Islamophobia Watch collective holds a Labour Party card and therefore cannot advocate a vote for him. However, voters in Tower Hamlets may well conclude that the best way to demonstrate their feelings about the Labour NEC’s appalling capitulation to a Gilligan-inspired witch-hunt will be to elect Lutfur mayor of Tower Hamlets with a ringing majority on 21 October.

Halal hysteria continues in the Mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following on from the previous week’s scaremongering front-page story, the Mail returned this weekend to the subject of halal meat.

We were in fact treated to two stories, “How 70% of New Zealand lamb imports to Britain are halal… but this is NOT put on the label” in Saturday’s issue and “Top supermarkets secretly sell halal: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S don’t tell us meat is ritually slaughtered” in the Mail on Sunday.

Saturday’s report states at the end: “The trade body Beef & Lamb New Zealand said the form of halal slaughter used there does allow for the animals to be stunned. A spokesman said: ‘In New Zealand the process for halal slaughter is virtually the same as for non-halal slaughter’.”

In fact, earlier this year New Zealand imposed a legal requirement that all animals killed for commercial consumption must be stunned prior to slaughter.

Inayat Bunglawala tells us that he was contacted by the Mail for a comment and gave them the following quote:

“Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as Halal. Consumers – despite risible tabloid scare antics – are quite capable of appreciating that in a globalised world meat is sourced from many different quarters and that halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat. It is just that with halal meat the method of slaughter is with a sharp knife instead of a gun and that the name of God is recited over the animal in order to give thanks to God for providing us with food.”

And how does the quote appear in the Mail on Sunday? Like this: “Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as halal. Halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat.”

Predictably, the Mail reports are seized on by mad Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs: “In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered in a barbaric, torturous and inhuman method, Islamic slaughter. Ugh.”