Man in court over death threat to Salma Yaqoob

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma_yaqoobA man appeared in court yesterday charged with threatening to kill a Birmingham councillor. Stuart Collins, 48, of Birmingham, appeared before city magistrates over claims abusive threats were sent to Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob. She is the councillor for Sparkbrook and her party’s national leader.

A West Midlands Police spokesman confirmed: “Following an investigation, a 48 year-old has been charged with racially aggravated harassment, religiously aggravated harassment and making threats to kill. He appeared at Birmingham Magistrates Court and was bailed until August 31.”

Coun Yaqoob chairs the anti-war movement in Birmingham and is an active pro-Palestinian campaigner. She is an outspoken commentator on Muslim issues, and regularly appears on TV and radio current affairs programmes. After standing as a Respect candidate in the 2005 election, she was elected in the Sparkbrook ward in the 2006 local elections.

Birmingham Post, 16 August 2009

The burkini – it’s part of ‘the Islamist war on the West’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

James-Delingpole“When most of us think of militant Islam, we tend to think in terms of suicide bombs on London buses, planes flying into Twin Towers and 19-year olds getting their limbs blown off by Taliban IEDs. But as any extremist Imam could tell you, there are at least two ways in which a good Muslim can further the ongoing struggle to convert the whole world from the House of War (that’s the non-Muslim world) to the House of Islam (ie global submission to the will of Allah): one (see above) is by poison or the sword; the other is by honey.

“So the Burkini is part of the honey campaign: all those parts of the Islamist war on the West that have nothing to do with killing people. This campaign includes everything from schoolgirls fighting legal battles (with the help of one Cherie Blair) to fight for their inalienable right to go to school dressed like a sack, to Muslim supermarket workers trying to dictate the terms of their employment (refusing to sell alcohol), to the ongoing campaign (apparently endorsed by our own Archbishop of Canterbury) for certain civil decisions in the Muslim ‘community’ to be made under Sharia law. The goal is to establish the view that Islam is a religion should be allowed to trump everything, including the cultural norms of any non-Muslim society in which its adherents find themselves living.”

James Delingpole’s Daily Telegraph blog, 16 Auguat 2009

See also Jemima Lewis in the Daily Telegraph, 16 August 2009

Update:  Delingpole has published an expanded version of this bigoted rant in the Daily Express. See ENGAGE for a response.

Jim Fitzpatrick condemned for ‘hijacking’ Muslim wedding by bridegroom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

London Muslim CentreA bridegroom has accused Jim Fitzpatrick, the farming minister, of “politically hijacking” his wedding by publicly criticising the traditional Muslim segregation of men and women at the ceremony.

Bodrul Islam said he was “amazed and shocked” that Mr Fitzpatrick had used his wedding to make a political point about radicalisation and social integration. The 28-year-old said it would have been “common courtesy” for his local MP, who left the ceremony after being told he could not sit with his wife, to respect his religion’s customs.

Mr Islam, who is a Labour supporter, is now calling on Mr Fitzpatrick to apologise for the embarrassment he has caused to his family. “Please apologise for the fact you have hijacked an innocent wedding,” he said.

Mr Islam married Mahbuba Kamali, a 24 year-old investment banker, in front of 800 guests at a ceremony held in the London Muslim Centre, next to the East London Mosque, on Sunday. As is common with many Islamic weddings held on mosque premises, the event was segregated with men and women sitting in different rooms.

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town where a third of voters are Muslims, did not know the couple personally but was invited by the bride’s father. When he and his wife Sheila, a GP, were told by someone outside the couples’ families that they would be separated, they left the event.

The wedding party was keen not to offend Mr Fitzgerald so a local Labour councillor rang him up and invited him to come back, saying there was a table where non-Muslims of different sexes could sit together. But instead the minister contacted his local newspaper to tell them he was “disappointed” by what had happened.

Mr Fitpatrick said he had never meant to insult Mr Islam and his family and had left the wedding as discreetly as possible to avoid causing a scene. “My beef is with the IFE and the undue influence they have over the social, cultural and political aspects of the mosque. They are the militants of the 21st century, they are religious zealots with their interpretation of the Koran and I think this has now been exposed.”

Daily Telegraph, 15 August 2009

The Torygraph is facing two ways on this issue. On the one hand, it wants to cause the maximum damage to Jim Fitzpatrick’s prospects in the next general election. On the other hand, it has to cater to the anti-Muslim bigotry of its readership. So this sympathetic coverage of the upset caused to a Muslim couple by Fitzpatrick’s ignorance and stupidity is followed up with an article by Alasdair Palmer headlined “Why must we bow to the intolerant ways of Islam?“

French minister urges burka ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A ban on the wearing of the burka in France would help stem the spread of the “cancer” of radical Islam, one of its female Muslim ministers has said.

Urban Regeneration Minister Fadela Amara told the Financial Times that a veil covering everything but the eyes represented “the oppression of women”. Ms Amara said she was “in favour of the burka not existing in my country”.

The comments come as French MPs hold hearings on whether to ban the garment, which covers the body from head to toe.

BBC News, 15 August 2009

Jim Fitzpatrick condemns traditional Muslim wedding

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jim FitzpatrickThe Daily Telegraph reports that London Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick, a third of whose constituents are Muslim, has condemned the Muslim tradition of separating men and women at weddings.

Fitzpatrick and his wife walked out of the marriage ceremony of a constituent after discovering they would have to sit in separate rooms. He claimed the gender segregation was a sign of increasing radicalisation and was damaging to social cohesion.

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Swiss move to ban minarets as ‘symbols of Islamic power’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP advertThe normally sleepy Swiss country town of Langenthal has become the focus of a virulent right-wing campaign to ban minarets from all mosques in the Alpine republic on the grounds that they symbolise ideological opposition to the country’s constitution.

Switzerland’s “stop minaret” movement is backed by the influential ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which was re-elected in 2007 with its largest ever share of the vote after mounting an anti-foreigner campaign that was denounced by the United Nations as racist.

Ulrich Schüler, an SVP parliamentarian and leading member of the anti-minaret movement, says the edifices are political rather than religious. “They are symbols of a desire for power, of an Islam which wants to establish a legal and social order fundamentally contrary to the liberties guaranteed in our constitution,” he said.

Thomas Rufener, the town’s mayor, said about eight per cent of Langenthal’s residents were Muslims. “All the main parties have given their approval for the mosque,” he said. The regional canton of Bern has given approval in addition for the construction of a domed mosque. That will stand alongside the planned minaret which will be little more than 30 feet high.

An anti-minaret campaign has now lodged a formal complaint with the canton, claiming that the planned mosque amounts to an “ideological intrusion”. Daniel Zigg, a campaign spokesman, said the building would attract more than 100 Muslim believers a day during the Ramadan fast because it was the only one of its kind in the canton.

The anti-minaret campaigners are hoping to force Bern to rescind its approval for the minaret and score an important victory in the run-up to the November referendum. “There may be different laws governing this kind of thing in certain part of Paris or Berlin, but we don’t want them in Switzerland,” Mr Schüler said.

Two years ago his party fought a general election with famously xenophobic campaign posters depicting a flock of white sheep kicking a black sheep out of Switzerland.

Independent, 14 August 2009

Dutch right (and left) step up attack on Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

TariqRamadanOpposition members in the Rotterdam city council are once again calling for the resignation of integration consultant Tariq Ramadan, this time because he is hosting a talk show on an Iranian TV station.

Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim academic of Egyptian descent, was hired by the city of Rotterdam in 2007 to help bridge the divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. He also lectures at Rotterdam’s Erasmus university.

In April, the right-wing liberal party VVD resigned from the city executive because of its refusal to sack Ramadan following a controversy concerning homophobic statements Ramadan allegedly made. An investigation by the city executive concluded at the time there were no grounds for the accusations.

Now, three opposition parties in the city council – Leefbaar Rotterdam, the Socialist Party and the VVD – are once again calling for Ramadan’s resignation because of his collaboration with the Iranian state TV station Press TV.

Ramadan has been hosting a weekly talk show on the English-language Press TV titled “Islam & Life”. The ruling Labour party has also said that Ramadan’s work for Press TV affects his credibility, and has asked the city executive for clarification.

Leefbaar Rotterdam councilwoman Anita Fähmel said Ramadan’s “Iranian hat” proves once more that he has a “double agenda”. She said it was “unacceptable” that Ramadan is “on the payroll of the dictatorial regime of Ahmadinejad, while at the same time he preaches tolerance here in Rotterdam”.

NRC International, 13 August 2009

BNP nazi guest barred from UK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Preston WigintonA white supremacist friend of Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, was banned from entering Britain yesterday as he headed to speak at the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival this weekend.

Preston Wiginton, one of the world’s most active nazis and antisemites, was refused entry by immigration officers at Heathrow airport under laws to keep out “undesirables”. He was to have been the star overseas guest at the BNP’s tenth RWB festival, which opens today in Derbyshire.

It was Wiginton, 44, who organised Griffin’s anti-Islam tour of three US universities at the end of October 2007. As well as financing the trip, Wiginton appealed to users of the Stormfront nazi internet forum to donate money to Griffin while he was in America.

Searchlight, 14 August 2009

Former football hooligans regroup in far-Right Casuals United

Posted on by Bob Pitt

They see themselves as the vanguard in a battle for the soul of Britain against extremist Islamist forces – the “enemy within” bent on imposing Sharia. Casuals United announced their arrival on Saturday when a small army of shirt-sleeved, middle-aged men with beer bellies clashed in a flurry of punches and kicks with young Asians in Birmingham city centre.

The group, which is closely affiliated with the far-right English Defence League, insists that it is a peaceful movement representing ordinary working people angered by the sight of Muslims hurling insults at British soldiers on homecoming parades. But if the chants of “England, England” and the aggressive posturing appear familiar, it is because they are.

The members of Casuals United are largely former football hooligans drawn from the terraces and, according to their critics, are essentially the BNP and National Front repackaged. The groupings have attracted the support of BNP activists including Chris Renton, who created the English Defence League website.

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