American Family Association: deport all Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has a solution to the “Muslim problem” in the US:

“First, the most compassionate thing we can do for Americans is to bring a halt to the immigration of Muslims into the U.S. This will protect our national security and preserve our national identity, culture, ideals and values. Muslims, by custom and religion, are simply unwilling to integrate into cultures with Western values and it is folly to pretend otherwise. In fact, they remain dedicated to subjecting all of America to sharia law and are working ceaselessly until that day of Islamic imposition comes.

“The most compassionate thing we can do for Muslims who have already immigrated here is to help repatriate them back to Muslim countries, where they can live in a culture which shares their values, a place where they can once again be at home, surrounded by people who cherish their deeply held ideals. Why force them to chafe against the freedom, liberty and civil rights we cherish in the West?

“In other words, simple Judeo-Christian compassion dictates a restriction and repatriation policy with regard to Muslim immigration into the U.S.”

AFA blog, 8 April 2010

Via Media Matters.

NF stages Halal protest outside Colne KFC

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Colne KFC protestPeople campaigning against the trial of Halal meat at KFC restaurants held a protest in Colne on Saturday afternoon.

Mr Steven Smith, who campaigns against ritual slaughter, led a demonstration outside the KFC outlet at the North Valley Retail Park. Mr Smith, who lives in Burnley, joined four more campaigners to raise awareness and hand out leaflets about the controversial trial, being tested at 74 KFC stores nationwide.

He said: “It was a very successful demonstration and we had a number of people supporting us. We campaign against ritually slaughtered meat – Muslim Halal – which involves cutting the throat of animals and is a cruel method of killing animals. It can take up to four minutes for the animal to die, rather than them dying instantly.”

Mr Smith also claimed the RSCPA has condemned the practice of Halal. However, a spokesman said the animal charity’s belief is that all animals should be stunned before slaughter as it lessens their suffering. While not all Halal meat is stunned before slaughter, KFC insists its poultry is stunned before slaughter, using a technique called “stun-to-stun”.

Nina Arnott, a KFC spokesman, added: “Our restaurants in Burnley and Colne are taking part in our Halal trial following great demand in the area. We’ve worked with the Halal Food Authority and animal welfare organisations to ensure our systems and processes fully comply with halal requirements while staying true to our strict standards of animal welfare, which have not been compromised as a result of this trial.”

Pendle Today, 8 April 2010

The report fails to mention that Steven Smith is a veteran fascist and currently Burnley organiser for the National Front, who were behind the protest.

Muslim couple say train attack was racial hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police are searching for a gang of about 20 Derby men after an attack on a Muslim couple on a train to Nottingham.

Abida Malik said the men called her and her husband Asif Ahmed terrorists. One man put Mr Ahmed in a headlock saying he was making a citizen’s arrest.

The gang boarded the train at Loughborough on Easter Sunday evening, after what British Transport Police believe was a drinking session.

Officers have described it as an “unpleasant and nasty” incident.

Abida Malik, who wears the hijab – or headscarf – was travelling home after a wedding in Leicester with her husband.

She said: “I was full of fear, my heart was beating really fast and I felt so helpless because there was so many of them.”

“Everyone seemed too scared to do anything… Now I don’t want to travel on the train by myself, and I don’t want him (Asif) to go by himself. They could have stabbed him”.

BBC News, 8 April 2010

See also FOSIS press release, 9 April 2010

More than half of Austrians feel ‘threatened’ by Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than half of Austrians consider Islam a threat, according to a poll published Wednesday.

According to the poll carried out by the IMAS institute, 54 percent of those polled agreed that “Islam is a threat to the West and our way of life”, while 72 percent believed “Muslims do not adapt to the rules of community life”. For 71 percent of Austrians Islam is not compatible with Western concepts of democracy, liberty and tolerance.

The poll was taken as Austrians prepare to vote on April 25 to elect a new president, a largely honorific but above all moral figurehead. Outgoing Social Democrat Heinz Fischer, who is almost certain to be re-elected, is standing against two candidates who are hostile to immigration: Barbara Rosenkranz, on the extreme right, who wants to restore border controls, and Rudolf Gehring, who heads the Christian party fervently opposed to the building of minarets.

Among extreme right-wing voters, 78 percent said they see Islam as a threat. No figure was available for the Christian party. Among supporters of the Green ecologist party, only 16 percent of the population held that view, well below the average in the general population.

The poll was carried out between January 19 and February 8 among 1,088 people.

Daily Times, 8 April 2010

See also “Majority say Islam is a ‘threat'”, Austrian Independent, 7 April 2010 and “Strache feels ‘confirmed’ by Islam poll results”, Austrian Independent, 8 April 2010

UKIP reinstates candidate who denounced ‘Muslim nutters who want to kill us and put us under medieval Sharia law’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul WiffenA UKIP parliamentary candidate has been reinstated after posting racist remarks on a social care website. Paul Wiffen, who is campaigning to be MP for Ilford South in east London, responded to a criticism of the party on the Community Care site.

The remarks focused on Muslims, Romanian Gypsies and African and Caribbean communities. UKIP said he had been suspended but, following his apology and an inquiry, he was allowed back into the party.

The comment was made in response to a post by Community Care’s Outside Left blogger on asylum. Mr Wiffen, chair of UKIP London, said:

“You left-wing scum are all the same, wanting to hand our birthright to Romanian gypsies who beat their wives and children into begging and stealing money they can gamble with, Muslim nutters who want to kill us and put us under medieval Sharia law, the same Africans who sold their Afro-Caribbean brothers into a slavery that Britain was first to abolish (but you still want to apologize for!)”

BBC News, 8 April 2010

Father of USS Cole victim can display anti-Islam decals

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jesse Nieto stickerA civilian employee at the Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina has won his battle to display anti-Islamic decals on his van while driving on the base.

Jesse Nieto, whose son was among 16 sailors killed in the 2000 terror attack against the USS Cole, had used the windows of his car as a place of tribute to his son. He displayed a gold star (a symbol of death in combat), a combat action ribbon, and the message: “Remember the Cole, 12 Oct. 2000.”

But Mr. Nieto also used his vehicle to express his opinion of those who killed his son. Decals proclaimed: “Islam = Terrorism,” “We Died, They Rejoiced,” and a picture of the US flag with the words: “Disgrace My Countries [sic] Flag And I Will [defecate] On Your Quran.”

He also displayed a decal picture of Calvin (from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon) urinating on a cartoon illustration of the Prophet Mohammed. The Mohammed illustration was a re-creation of one of the cartoons that provoked Muslim protests against a Danish newspaper and sparked an assassination plot against the cartoonist.

After seven years with these messages on his car, someone on the base complained. Nieto was ordered to remove them. He removed the most offensive decals, but was later cited again for violating a base traffic regulation that prohibits the display of “extremist, indecent, sexist, or racist messages” on motor vehicles.

Nieto, a Marine combat veteran, decided to fight back. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in North Carolina he claimed a First Amendment free speech right to express his opinion of Islam and Islamic terrorists.

Government lawyers countered that a military base is not an open public forum like a town hall meeting or a public park. The base commander is entitled to enact and enforce reasonable restrictions on speech when open debate or protests might disrupt the military’s mission, they argued.

Nieto’s lawyer, Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, countered that government restrictions of speech must be viewpoint neutral and not just aimed at silencing speech critical of Islam. He argued that the base regulation would not ban decals praising Islam, only those critical of Islam.

Last week, Senior US District Judge Malcolm Howard ruled for Nieto. He said the base regulation was not being enforced in a neutral manner and was therefore unconstitutional as applied to Nieto. “The fact that [Nieto’s] message may be extremely offensive to some is not a sufficient basis for banning [his] decals,” Judge Howard wrote.

Muise said the case was a result of “political correctness run amok” on a military base. “What is refreshing, is that the judge saw through this political correctness nonsense and applied the law straight up,” he said.

Christian Science Monitor, 7 April 2010

Army builds ‘mosques’ on North Yorkshire firing range

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Firing range mosquesA Muslim group has demanded an apology from the British Army after it emerged that replica mosques were being used on a North Yorkshire firing range.

The chairman of the Bradford Council for Mosques (BCM) said the structures at Catterick should be taken down immediately. The Ministry of Defence said it had “no intention” of causing offence.

The BMC said it was particularly angry as it had been assisting the army in its efforts to recruit more Muslims.

Saleem Khan, the chief executive of the BCM, called for the Army to apologise. “The first thing they need to do is remove this straight away,” he said. “They do owe apologies to the Muslim community and it is the mind set which needs changing.”

There are seven of the structures on the range at Bellerby, which have green domed roofs. Ishtiaq Ahmed of the BCM said that they were undoubtedly meant to resemble mosques.

“The shape of the structures, the colour of the dome – the green dome – symbolises an Islamic place of worship,” he said. “Anyone looking at it will think about mosques and Muslims and think about them negatively.”

He accused the Army of reinforcing negative perceptions of Muslims. “What angers me very much is that we are conditioning the young British to say that mosques are a place where you are going to find danger and a place to target,” Mr Ahmed said. “That is really disturbing.”

BBC News, 8 April 2010

See also MCB press release, 8 April 2010

Warsaw mosque protest: Buddhists join hands with skinheads against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Warsaw mosque protestOn 27 March a previously previously unknown group, Europe of the Future, held a protest against the proposal to build a new mosque in Warsaw (see here and here).

A reader from Poland has drawn our attention to the rather bizarre fact that a Buddhist organisation played a leading role in the protest. The organisation is called Diamond Way and is headed by a Dane named Ole Nydahl. Our correspondent tells us that “members of the Diamond Way organisation were prominent in TV coverage of the demonstration against the mosque”.

Indeed, the Polish journalist Robert Stefanicki reports that Europe of the Future is headed by the former president of of Nydahl’s organisation in Poland. Stefanicki adds: “Other supporters of Europe of the Future are Mlodziez Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youths) – ultra right group with hardly hidden fascist attraction, as well as other islamophobic right wingers. Weird coalition, isn’t it?”

Continue reading →

Islamophobes – they can dish it out but they can’t take it

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at his Gauche blog, City University lecturer and former Tribune editor Paul Anderson recounts how he shouted and swore at journalists from the university’s student paper the Inquirer when they approached him over a story about his fellow lecturer Rosie Waterhouse, who had called for a ban on the niqab at the university.

What provoked Anderson’s fit of apoplexy was that “the key quote the Inquirer team had for their story, from the president of the student Islamic Society at City, Saleh Patel, was blatantly abusive a rsity.

Faced with Anderson’s ire, and no doubt fearful of future retribution, the Inquirer didn’t use the quote from Saleh Patel. So much for freedom of expression, eh?

This is par for the course with Islamophobes. Anderson has no objection to his friend Waterhouse describing the wearing of the niqab by students as “offensive and threatening” (what confidence can such students have that they will be welcomed at City University’s Department of Journalism?). And he thinks he has the right to accuse the City University Islamic Society of having “relentlessly pushed a separatist and intolerant version of Islam, repeatedly promoting apologists for terrorist violence and the most reactionary social attitudes”.

But Anderson furiously rejects the right of his opponents to criticise him harshly in return.