BBC boss told Muslim head of religious broadcasting not to discuss his faith

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, told Aaqil Ahmed, the head of religious broadcasting, to “stop talking about this Muslim thing”.

When Aaqil Ahmed became the first Muslim to be the BBC’s head of religious broadcasting, he probably anticipated the controversy that it would cause among some Christians. What he did not expect, however, was that his faith would be an issue with the director-general of the corporation, Mark Thompson.

Ahmed has, though, let it be known that he was told not to discuss his religion by his boss. “Mark Thompson said to me, ‘you must stop talking about this Muslim thing’,” Ahmed disclosed. “I said: ‘You may have noticed, Mark, I’ve never raised it; everybody else raises it.”

Sunday Telegraph, 27 June 2010

Posted in UK

Defeating ‘universal jihad’ in Tennessee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vijay Kumar billboard

What is it with Republicans in Tennessee? Lou Ann Zelenik, who is standing as a Republican candidate for Congress in Tennessee’s 6th District, has just denounced the plan to build a new Islamic centre in Murfreesboro as part of “a political movement designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee”. Another Republican candidate, Vijay Kumar, who has in the past been boosted by David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine, is standing in Tennessee’s 5th District – under the slogan “Defeat Universal Jihad Now!”.

In a recent interview, Kumar explained:

“My position is clear and unequivocal: Islam’s Universal Jihad and Sharia law pose a clear and present existential threat to the very existence of the United States, and to every liberty, freedom, and human right that this nation was founded upon.

“… if the American people do not awake to the nature and seriousness of this threat, if we do not take swift and effective action to protect our republic from it, if we do not openly and candidly name the enemies of freedom and human liberty – in short, if Islam is allowed to realize its goals – then one day there will be no 5th District of Tennessee, nor will there be any Tennessee, nor will there be a United States of America, and the Quran will be the only constitution ruling this land that we cherish.”

Youth supporter of EDL and BNP manufactured gunpowder and nail bomb

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A boy with an “unhealthy interest” in explosives and right wing politics made gunpowder and nailbombs with chemicals bought from his mother’s eBay account.

Police found a pipe packed with nails and screws and charged with powder in the 16 year old’s bedroom, and a pipe with a firework inside hidden under a waste oil tank at a nearby petrol station.

The youngster also had literature from the right wing groups the British National Party and the English Defence League, together with Nazi emblems.

Officers were tipped off by the eBay seller who was concerned about the commodities being bought. The family’s house in Tamworth, Staffs, was immediately evacuated while explosives and firearms experts searched the property for three days.

Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2010

Update:  See also Tamworth Herald, 1 July 2010

Prayer vigil in Murfreesboro

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Murfreesboro prayer vigilIn the middle of the Rutherford County courthouse lobby, more than two dozen people formed a prayer circle in support of a controversial new mosque.

The prayer vigil was held one week after nearly 650 filled the same courthouse to make it known they did not want the Muslim community building a new Islamic Center on Veals Road.

“We most overcome this ignorance, this cloud of racial darkness that is over our community. We must overcome it,” said vigil organizer Darrell Bouldin.

Those who attended the vigil said they came to show there is tolerance within the Murfreesboro community for people of different religions. “Freedom of religion. That’s my basic reason for being here, my belief in freedom of religion,” Beverly Yousef Zadeh said after the vigil ended.

Pastor Mike Williams led the group in prayer and meditation Thursday night. “Be present as you meditate on peace, tolerance and compassion,” Williams told the crowd.

As they stood in silent meditation, someone who opposed the mosque broke that silence. “You folks can do all your meditating you’d like. These people are coming here to take over the United States,” the man said.

News Channel 5, 25 June 2010

Muslim schoolgirl suffers brutal attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sureyya OzkayaThese are the shocking injuries inflicted upon schoolgirl Sureyya Ozkaya during a brutal daylight assault near her Thornton Heath home.

The 14-year-old’s hair was set on fire and her hands and feet were cut with glass during the attack in Grangewood Park, before her attackers smashed her head against a tree and left her bleeding in a bush.

She was stumbled upon by a woman walking her dog and carried home to nearby Kitchener Road following the attack, at about 7.30pm on June 9.

Sureyya’s mother Pemdegul Kale, 39, said three girls taunted her daughter about her Muslim faith as they carried out the assault, before burning her hair with a lighter and stealing her trainers.

Croydon Guardian, 24 June 2010

Tory MP to present Private Members Bill against veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Philip HolloboneA Kettering MP who has led calls to ban Muslim women from wearing the burka in Britain is to ask Parliament to restrict its use.

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, will present his Private Members Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday in the wake of a Council of Europe ruling saying no bans should be imposed. MPs from 47 countries voted that outlawing the hijab would deny women the right to cover their faces even if they genuinely want to.

Mr Hollobone, who previously likened wearing the garment to “going around with a paper bag over your head“, said: “The ruling clearly demonstrates that members of the council of the EU are out of touch with popular opinion.

“What they said does leave open the possibility of restrictions on the wearing of burkas for security and other reasons – it doesn’t forbid any measure. If motorcyclists have to take their helmet off when they go into shops and banks the same rules should apply to people wearing the burka.”

A private member’s bill is a proposed law introduced by a backbench MP for the House of Commons to debate but does not automatically become law if MPs vote in its favour.

Inam Khan, chairman of the Kettering Muslim Association, said: “This has never been an issue in Kettering. There are only two females in the entire population of 35,000 here who wear the hijab. I don’t understand why it has become an issue, especially when there are such serious other issues affecting the country.

“You will never, ever speak to anybody who works in a bank or a shop or a newsagent in Kettering who has had an issue with this.”

Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, 25 June 2010

Religious hatred law once again shown to be useless

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A local Dewsbury columnist who wrote that had the Cumbria mass-murderer been carrying the Qur’an he would have been celebrated by “so-called British Muslims” will not face prosecution, Dewsbury police announced.

Almost 300 demonstrators gathered outside Dewsbury Police Station on June 6 in protest at alleged inflammatory Islamophobic comments made in the The Press the previous Friday.

Writing just three days after Derrick Bird murdered 12 people in Cumbria and before the victims’ burials, the local paper’s columnist, Danny Lockwood, wrote that had Bird been carrying a copy of the Qur’an, “he would have been celebrated as a hero by tens of thousands, possibly more, of so-called ‘British’ Muslims.”

A CPS spokesman told The Muslim News: “According the legal guidance evidence would have had to be obtained revealing that Lockwood used ‘threatening’ language ‘to stir up religious hatred’. Threatening is the operative word, not abusive or insulting.

“So using abusive or insulting behaviour intended to stir up religious hatred does not constitute an offence, nor does using threatening words likely to stir up religious hatred.”

The Muslim News, 25 June 2010

Republican candidate denounces Murfreesboro mosque proposal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lou Ann ZelenikA Tennessee Republican candidate for Congress says plans to build a mosque in a Nashville suburb pose a threat to her state’s moral and political foundation.

In a Thursday evening statement, 6th District candidate Lou Ann Zelenik said she stands with those who oppose building what she calls “an Islamic training center.” She says the center is not part of a religious movement, but a political one “designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee.”

“Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open our society to any of them,” Zelenik says in the statement.

Zelenik, who calls herself a leader in the Middle Tennessee tea party movement, hopes to replace U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, who is retiring after 13 terms.

Associated Press, 24 June 2010

See also Murfreesboro Post, 24 June 2010

Update:  See “Ask GOP to repudiate anti-mosque Tenn. candidate”, CAIR action alert, 25 June 2010