US airline worker sues former employer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Pakistani-American airline engineer from Brooklyn is suing his firm for allegedly allowing co-workers to taunt him by calling him “bomb-maker.”

Jamil Akhtar, 51, said he complained to his bosses at NorthAmerican Airlines that other employees derided him with derogatory names like “Packy,” insulted his Muslim religion and threatened him.

His suit, filed yesterday in Brooklyn state Supreme Court, charges that when he complained to superiors, he was threatened with the loss of his FAA license.

Akhtar said he took a two-week leave of absence in 2007 and when he returned, a supervisor smiled and said, “What are you doing here? You’re fired.”

The engineer quit in 2007. He is suing for back pay and other damages.

New York Post, 10 July 2010

New Jersey: Muslim woman sues hospital over religious discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rona Mohammedi went to Somerset Medical Center the night of Feb. 11 with severe chest pains. After hearing she would need an electrocardiogram, she asked for a female to conduct the test.

A Muslim, Mohammedi wears traditional garb, including the hijab, or head scarf. The Basking Ridge woman believes it is her religious duty to maintain modesty before strange men, and an EKG calls for wires to be applied to the chest, shoulders and wrists.

Instead of heeding her request, officials let her languish in the emergency room for five hours until 3:10 a.m., when her husband sought a transfer. She is suing the hospital for discrimination and violating the Patient Bill of Rights.

The complaint filed May 14 in Superior Court in Somerville raises the question of how far hospitals must go for religious accommodations. The rights listed in state statutes say patients can expect treatment without discrimination, and respectful care consistent with sound medical practices.

Mohammedi’s lawyer, Tariq Hussain, said the hospital failed those basic tenets. “According to the patients’ bill of rights that exist in New Jersey, hospitals are required to make reasonable accommodations for patients for various reasons,” he said. “Patients should not be denied service or discriminated against based on religion.”

NJ.com, 11 July 2010

Australian Muslims condemn media misrepresentation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian-Muslim families have good relations with other Australians, and feel safe and happy here. But they are furious with the media for depicting Muslims as terrorists and criminals, a report for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship reveals.

“The families felt strongly the media was gunning for Muslims; it was a huge concern for them,” said Ilan Katz, the director of the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW, and a co-author of the study. The research is part of a wider project commissioned by the department to understand the concerns and needs of Muslim Australians.

Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2010

French parliament set to vote on veil ban Tuesday

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French passportAs France’s parliament debates whether to ban burqa-like Muslim veils, one lawmaker compares them to muzzles, or “walking coffins.” Another proclaims that women who wear them must be liberated, even against their will.

Amid little resistance, France’s lower house of parliament will likely approve a ban on face-covering veils Tuesday, and the Senate will probably follow suit in September.

Polls show voters overwhelmingly support a ban. In parliament, criticism was mostly timid, and relatively few dissenters spoke out about civil liberties or fears of fanning anti-Islam sentiment in a country where there are an estimated 5 million Muslims, and where mainstream society has struggled to integrate generations of immigrants.

One obstacle, however, may still stand in the way of a ban: the courts. Law scholars say the ban could be shot down by France’s constitutional watchdog or the European Court of Human Rights. That could dampen efforts under way in other European countries toward banning the veils.

Legislator Berengere Poletti, of Sarkozy’s conservative party, argued that women in such garb “wear a sign of alienation on their faces” and “must be liberated,” even if they say the apparel is their own choice.

Communist Andre Gerin, who also supports a ban, said that “talking about liberty to defend the wearing of the full veil is totally cynical – for me, the full veil is a walking coffin, a muzzle.”

Socialist Jean Glavany, one of the few lawmakers to offer stinging criticism of a ban, said dwelling on questions of French identity and whether burqas are welcome in France “is nothing more than the fear of those who are different, who come from abroad, who aren’t like us, who don’t share our values.” He was also one of several lawmakers to question the bill’s “judicial fragility.”

Associated Press, 12 July 2010

See also “French National Assembly debates burqa ban”, WSWS, 12 July 2010 and “French entrepreneur offers to pay veil fines”,Reuters, 12 July 2010

EDL supporters in court charged with violent disorder and threatening behaviour

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three English Defence League supporters appeared at Aylesbury Magistrates Court on Friday over alleged offences on the day the group protested in May. Among them was Brian Price, 40, the EDL’s West Midlands co-ordinator.

Mr Price, of Stonehouse Lane in Quinton, gave no indication to his plea on a charge of violent disorder. Collum Keyes, 23, of Somerton Drive in Birmingham, pleaded not guilty to violent disorder. Prosecutor Shahreena Coker said the pair were arrested after EDL members surged through police lines after their Market Square protest on May 1.

Also in court was Daryl Hobson, 43, of Newland Road in Worthing, West Sussex. Wearing an EDL jersey, he pleaded not guilty to a charge of threatening and abusive behaviour.

Mr Price and Mr Keyes were told that their case would be heard at Aylesbury Crown Court, and were released on conditional bail – which prevents them taking part in EDL rallies – for a commital hearing on August 20. Mr Hobson was released on unconditional bail, with his trial at Aylesbury Magistrates Court set to start on November 8.

Bucks Herald, 10 July 2010

Postscript:  Over at the Casuals United blog the EDL are boasting that yesterday they disrupted a meeting organised by the Islamic Association of Lincoln for the local Muslim community to discuss plans for a new mosque and community centre in the town. According to the EDL, they were confronted by “jihadists” and “politely asked to vacate the premises”. I mean, “politely asked to vacate the premises”. Are there no extremes to which these jihadists will not go in their efforts to oppress patriotic Britons?

Casuals United go on to claim that “Lincolns Mosque is due to be funded by Tablighi Jamaat the extreme Saudi sect behind 9/11”. In reality, the funding for the new mosque is being raised through an appeal to the Muslim community. As for Tablighi Jamaat, it is of course an organisation originating in South Asia that has no connection with Saudi Arabia, still less 9/11.

The EDL – not only violent but thick with it.

Lincoln Casuals disrupt pro Mosque meeting

EDL protestor found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An EDL protester, Kevin Smith, has been given a suspended eight-week prison sentence for putting a pig’s head on the wall of Dudley central mosque in the Castle Hill area of the town on 29 May.

Police believe Smith, 52, of Brierley Hill, was on his way to the Newcastle demonstration when the act took place. He was arrested on 2 June and has been found guilty of religiously aggravated intentional harassment at Dudley magistrates court.

Smith was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and among the conditions imposed was an order that he stay out of the Castle Hill area.

Guardian, 9 July 2010

Griffin recommends Wilders for Sakharov Prize

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British National Party leader and MEP Nick Griffin announced this morning in the European Parliament that he wished to nominate brave Dutch MEP Geert Wilders for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Mr Griffin nominated Mr Wilders for “his tireless commitment to freedom of speech and his continuous struggle against islamisation, mass-immigration and the leftish attacks on Western Humanist Judeo-Christian values that destroy Europe from within.”

Referring to the current attempts to prosecute Mr Wilders in his native Holland, Mr Griffin quoted another MEP who said it was a disgrace that in a European country, a man is being prosecuted for defending such a fundamental right as the freedom of speech.

“While our society is changing because of the Islamisation and mass-immigration the Dutch judiciary decided to go after a democratically elected representative for the use of his right of free speech,” Mr Griffin continued.

“The European Parliament should give a signal, by awarding Geert Wilders the Sakharov Prize 2010 that it will not tolerate such monstrous attacks on freedom of speech and the right for any citizen to defend the values that are the historical and undeniable cornerstones of the society they live in.

“Geert Wilders does not give up, even though he is continuously under attack by those who still believe in the multicultural dream and anyone who believes that the barbaric Islam is a contribution to Western society.”

BNP News report, 8 July 2010

Europeans approve, Americans reject veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pew pollDays before French lawmakers are due to vote on a bill that would make it illegal for Muslim women to wear full veils in public, a US poll has found that a majority of Europeans back such a ban while Americans reject it.

The French overwhelmingly endorse a ban on Muslim face coverings, also known as the burqa or the niqab, as do majorities in Britain, Germany and Spain, a survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project found.

More than eight in 10 people in France said they would approve of a ban on Muslim women wearing full veils in public, including in schools, hospitals and government offices, the survey, conducted over three weeks in April and May, found. Just 17 percent of French people were opposed to a ban on the burqa.

Majorities in Germany (71 percent), Britain (62 percent) and Spain (59 percent) said they would support a burqa ban in their own countries. But in the United States, the opposite was true, with two-thirds of Americans saying they were against a ban on full veils in public.

AFP, 7 July 2010

Download the poll report (pdf) here.

The report finds that in Europe and the US “support for a ban on Muslim women wearing a full veil is more pronounced among those who are age 55 and older” and that “those on the right in France, Britain and Germany are more likely than those on the left to approve of a ban on women wearing the full Islamic veil in public places”.

Houston store still suffers abuse over ‘9/11 martyr’ photo that went viral

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Houston store sign

Sajid Master wants the phone calls and angry letters to stop. He wants people to quit coming into Perfume Planet in west Houston to yell at his workers. He’d especially like folks to stop castigating his landlord.

Nearly a year after the Internet painted Master as an Al Qaida sympathizer, outrage toward the store at the Harwin Central Mart shows no sign of waning. “They’ve threatened to kill me; sometimes they’re cursing when they call,” a resigned Master said Thursday in his shop.

Trouble is, all the indignation is the product of a massive misunderstanding, illustrating the awesome – and sometimes damaging – power of the Internet. Master, who describes himself as a proud American citizen, isn’t a terrorist sympathizer. He’s just a shopkeeper who inadvertently touched a very raw nerve.

It started when the Muslim merchant posted a sign at his shop during Ramadan explaining the store would be closed Sept. 11 to remember the death of Imam Ali, a sacred Muslim figure. Master failed, however, to explain that Ali, who is remembered on a different date each year during Ramadan, died in 661 A.D. and was in no way related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Someone snapped a picture of the sign and started sending it around online, claiming Imam Ali was one of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Before long the photo went viral, showing up on countless conservative Internet forums and prompting statements like this one that appeared at 2Aforum.com: “Picket, protest, and through lawful means, strangle their business.”

Soon the phone calls started, befuddling and overwhelming store manager Hasan Kolsawala, who tried to explain that no offense was intended. People also called Master’s cell phone to denounce him.

He probably could have shrugged off the incident as a temporary annoyance, but 10 months later the consequences of that sign still reverberate. Phone calls to Perfume Planet often come in waves as people send around new e-mail chains urging recipients to voice their anger.

Houston Chronicle, 8 July 2010