Another thoughtful, responsible press release from the Centre for Social Cohesion.
Australian MP calls for bar on HT … and debate on banning the veil
Preachers of Islamic extremism should be barred from Australia, a federal MP says. Michael Johnson, a lower house independent, has also called for a debate on banning the burqa.
He said Prime Minister Julia Gillard and his former boss, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, needed to repudiate the leadership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic group which wants Australian Muslims to reject democracy. “Join together and repudiate the extremism of this global movement and … guarantee that none of its international preachers ever receive a visa to step on to Australian soil again,” Mr Johnson said in a statement.
The release was issued in response to an article in The Australian which reported Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders urging participants in a western Sydney conference to join the struggle for a transnational Islamic state.
Mr Johnson said Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage promoted inclusion, openness and transparency. “It is not our culture to exclude, nor is it one that aims to suppress women’s rights of equality, openness and full political participation,” he said. “Therefore, let us have a full and fearless debate on whether women should be required to wear the head to toe covering niqab, or the burqa.”
Mr Johnson’s comments make him potentially the most vocal Queenslander to criticise a minority group since Pauline Hanson said in her 1996 parliamentary maiden speech that Australia was in danger of being “swamped by Asians”.
Johnson evidently suffers from an irony by-pass. You’ll note that he calls for representatives of a peaceful if highly sectarian Islamist organisation to be denied entry to Australia, while simultaneously declaring that “it is not in our culture to exclude”. Clearly Australia’s “Judeo-Christian heritage”, is not without its contradictions.
Another political campaign based on religious hatred
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_DGNu6dI_ZE
INDIANAPOLIS — Congressman André Carson’s Republican opponent, Marvin Scott, is now calling on Carson (D-7th District), who is Muslim, to “stand up against Muslim extremism.” It’s a tactic that has local Islamic leaders condemning Scott’s actions.
It’s a normal Friday at Al-Fajr, a mosque on the northwest side of town, where Muslims gather for Jumu’a, the Friday prayer service. Before the service we asked the Chairman of the board, Dr. Haroon Qazi and another leader, Tim Palmer, to give us their reaction to the website created this week by GOP Congressional candidate Marvin Scott, drmarvinscottforcongress.com.
On it, Scott lists “fight Muslim extremism” as one of his guiding principles. Click on the words and you will find an image from 9/11 and ten reasons why radical Islam is a threat. They include “Islam commands homosexuals must be executed.” “Islam allows husbands to hit their wives.” And “Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.”
Dr. Haroon Qazi, Chairman of the Board at the Al-Fajr Mosque says, “You can take anything out of context and make a peaceful religion into something which is demonic.”
Scott is trying to unseat Carson, one of two Muslims in Congress but, at the mosque there is a belief that in the process he is smearing, not just Carson, but all Muslims. Al-Fajr Mosque public relations chair Tim Palmer points to website saying, “The change in word phrase, ‘Muslim extremism’ transitioning into just “Muslims”, is painting all Muslims as extremists.”
See also Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim, 2 July 2010
‘Flying while Muslim’: ACLU challenges no fly list
At the Long Beach, California, airport, a 28 year-old married student, Halime Sat, tried to board a plane to Oakland. She was denied access. Ms. Sat, a resident of Corona, California, has suddenly been put on the government’s no-fly list. She has no criminal record nor affiliation with any outlawed organization anywhere in the world. The only crime committed by this young German citizen, who is married to an American: Flying while Muslim.
Ms. Sat is one of a ten plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging that thousands of people have been added to the no-fly list and barred from commercial travel, without any opportunity to learn about or refute the basis for their inclusion on the list. Plaintiffs in the case include a disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran stranded in Egypt and a U.S. Army veteran stuck in Colombia.
Ms. Sat was only trying to fly from one place to another in the state where she is a permanent resident. Denying people such fundamental rights in complete secrecy and without due process is unconstitutional and un-American. They become pariahs, deemed unworthy to fly – but no one says why.
See also “Too scary to fly, not scary enough to arrest”, Wired, 30 June 2010
Another political campaign based on religious hatred
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_DGNu6dI_ZE
INDIANAPOLIS — Congressman André Carson’s Republican opponent, Marvin Scott, is now calling on Carson (D-7th District), who is Muslim, to “stand up against Muslim extremism.” It’s a tactic that has local Islamic leaders condemning Scott’s actions.
It’s a normal Friday at Al-Fajr, a mosque on the northwest side of town, where Muslims gather for Jumu’a, the Friday prayer service. Before the service we asked the Chairman of the board, Dr. Haroon Qazi and another leader, Tim Palmer, to give us their reaction to the website created this week by GOP Congressional candidate Marvin Scott, drmarvinscottforcongress.com.
On it, Scott lists “fight Muslim extremism” as one of his guiding principles. Click on the words and you will find an image from 9/11 and ten reasons why radical Islam is a threat. They include “Islam commands homosexuals must be executed.” “Islam allows husbands to hit their wives.” And “Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.”
Dr. Haroon Qazi, Chairman of the Board at the Al-Fajr Mosque says, “You can take anything out of context and make a peaceful religion into something which is demonic.”
Scott is trying to unseat Carson, one of two Muslims in Congress but, at the mosque there is a belief that in the process he is smearing, not just Carson, but all Muslims. Al-Fajr Mosque public relations chair Tim Palmer points to website saying, “The change in word phrase, ‘Muslim extremism’ transitioning into just “Muslims”, is painting all Muslims as extremists.”
See also Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim, 2 July 2010
Catalonia: veil ban motion defeated
Catalonia’s parliament rejected Thursday a move to ban the wearing of the Islamic burqa in public places across the Spanish region after reversing an initial vote.
A resolution moved by conservatives and centre-right nationalists was passed, but opponents said there had been a technical error and some absentees at the moment of the vote.
After the session was suspended, the parliamentary speaker ordered the vote to be put again, prompting a walk-out by the motion’s supporters and a victory for its left-wing opponents.
The motion would have called on the government of the northeastern region to ban the Islamic women’s garment which conceals all but the eyes, in the street as well as in public buildings.
Right-wing deputy Rafael Lopez said it was a question of values, of voicing opposition to clothing which he said kept women in a “degrading prison.”
Veil bans spread in Catalonia
There are no burqas on the streets of Tarrés. In fact, there are no Muslims at all in this village of 108 inhabitants in north-east Spain. But that will not stop the parish council debating whether to ban burqas and face-covering niqabs from parts of the village next week.
“It is true that there are no Muslims living in the village now, but this would be a preventive measure in case they come,” said parish councillor Daniel Rivera, from the tiny and openly xenophobic Partit per Catalunya.
Rivera’s motion to ban burqas has outraged many. Other councillors plan to vote against it, but whatever the result, the motion is symptomatic of wider moves in the Catalonia region to ban Islamic veils from public buildings.
Today the nearby provincial capital, Lleida, formally passed a ban that was first announced in May. Women found wearing burqas in public buildings will first be given a warning, but any repeat will lead to a fine of between €300 and €600 (£250-£500).
From Barcelona to Tarragona, bans are being slapped into place across the region. “At this rate we will end up with more bans than burqas,” said the immigration minister, Celestino Corbacho, himself a former town mayor in Catalonia.
The Lleida ban was not passed by the anti-immigrant parties but, as in Barcelona, by a socialist-led council. “This is about equality between men and women,” Mayor Ángel Ros said. “The burqa and the niqab are symbols of the political use of a religious dogmatism that had begun to appear in Lleida.”
Dangerous game
Victoria Brittain replies to Gita Sahgal and her supporters.
New Yorkers oppose mosque near Ground Zero … but Manhattanites support it
New York City voters, by an almost 2-to-1 ratio, oppose a plan by a Muslim group to build a mosque and cultural center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.
New Yorkers, by 52 percent to 31 percent, don’t want the Cordoba Initiative, a group that seeks to improve Muslim relations with Western societies, to build a community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan, the survey said. Opposition was strongest on Staten Island, where respondents were against the plan by 73 percent to 14 percent in favor.
In Manhattan, support for the project led, with 46 percent to 36 percent opposed.
Read the results of the poll here.
Cf. “Contrary to popular opinion, Muslims and mosques okay in Downtown”, Downtown Express, 2-8 July 2010
London nightclub owner says he will boycott Muslim businesses
One of London’s leading gay club owners sparked controversy today after posting an online rant about British Muslims, PinkPaper.com can exclusively report.
The entrepreneur – who was responding on Facebook to a story on the Evening Standard site entitled Protestors Fight Police in Clashes Outside Mosque – vowed to boycott Muslim-owned businesses in response to recent unrest in East London. He also tried to justify his decision by reference to the death toll of British troops in Afghanistan, which has this month risen above 300.
PinkPaper.com has been trying to contact Mark Ames of club XXL in London to ask how he justified his remarks. We also wanted to double-check his Facebook account hadn’t been hacked although similar remarks have been made in his previous posts.
Ames – or someone posing as him – wrote: “From today I will be boycotting any shops, petrol stations restaurants or businesses I know are owned by Muslims this also includes holidays to muslim [sic] countries today see [sic] our death toll up to 300, so why the hell are we not just flying this scum back out to there beloved states and pull out and let them fight out there [sic] own issues!
“Funny thing is most of there parent’s would have used I am escaping the brutal rules of muslim society when they arrived on UK shores many years ago!” [sic]
Unsurprisingly, the comments have sparked criticism. One PinkPaper.com reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us: “I find this remark absolutely disturbing from anybody. But from the gay community? I am shocked.”
See also “XXL owner Mark Ames slammed for Muslim boycott”, Pink Paper, 30 June 2010
Via Islam in Europe
Update: A Facebook group “Bears Against Bigotry” has been formed to oppose Ames’s Islamophobic views. They haveannounced:
“Bears Against Bigotry have decided to march in Pride London along side and in solidarity with Imaan the LGBT Muslim Support Group this Saturday. We have chosen to do this to show that bears, their friends, families and admirers support a non-bigoted, tolerant and inclusive view of LGBTQ communities.”