Inside a Pakistani school where children are being brainwashed into terrorists

Thus the headline to a piece by John Humphrys in the Daily Mail. In fact, Humphrys presents no evidence whatsoever that the Jamia Binoria madrassa he visited in Karachi, and whose hospitality he has abused, is brainwashing its pupils into becoming terrorists.

Last year a CNN investigation into Jamia Binoria quoted a US State Department spokesperson as saying that the madrassa was “known to U.S. officials as a moderate institution, favored by Pakistani-Americans for its moderate and tolerant Islamic instruction”.

It is clear that Humphrys hasn’t bothered to carry out the most basic background research into a subject of which he knows nothing. This is a man who blithely informs his readers that there are “relatively few Wahhabis compared to the Sunnis and Shias”, evidently oblivious to the fact that Wahhabism is a variant of Sunni Islam.

A setback in the struggle against the Islamification of the West

Londonistan protestOver at his Lionheart blog, Paul Ray relates the sad tale of the mass anti-Muslim demo that wasn’t. It seems that one Dave Shaw had summoned like-minded patriots to join an “anti-extremist protest through the heart of Londonistan” last Saturday.

Alas, it was not to be. Members of Ray’s grandly titled English and Welsh Defence League turned up at the appointed meeting place for the demonstration, outside a pub at Trafalgar Square (see picture), only to find that they were the sole participants at the event.

According to Paul Ray: “With a no-show from ‘Dave Shaw’ and his group members, who all said they were going to be turning up on the day to protest for the sake of their country, no one really knew what we should do next, or where we should go to protest because it was not our organised event. After a few conversations it was decided that we would travel to Whitechapel and protest outside the East London Mosque, and take some group photographs.”

Unfortunately, backward elements within the English and Welsh Defence League proved inadequate to the task. As Ray recounts indignantly:

“At this point sadly, there were deserters amongst the ranks, who chose to entertain themselves in Covent Garden rather than sticking in the ranks with their brothers, and entering enemy territory with the rest of us, as part of the group who had travelled in to protest against Islamic extremists for the sake of their country.

“Desertion is one of the very worst forms of betrayal in the armed forces, with a prison sentence for those who choose to take that path and if we look back to the First World War, deserters were shot for their betrayal against their countrymen.”

So poor Paul Ray was left to march through the East End with what appears to be about a dozen of his mates.

Update:  See also Barthlomew’s Notes on Religion, 2 July 2009

Belfast Islamic Centre receives far-right racist threats

Members of a south Belfast Islamic community centre are in fear of being attacked after it was targeted by a threatening racist letter from a loyalist far-right organisation this week.

The Belfast Islamic Centre on Wellington Park was among organisations, businesses and politicians in south Belfast that have received racist threats over the last few days.

The Islamic Centre, established in 1978 by a group of Muslims from the local community, received a threatening letter on Monday claiming to be from a loyalist far-right organisation stating: “Keep Northern Ireland for white British people.”

Muhammad al-Qaryooti, the centre’s director, said the letter was extremely racist. “The letter said they had ‘no sympathy for foreigners — get out of the Queen’s country’,” said Mr al-Qaryooti.

Belfast Telegraph, 1 July 2009

Now Christopher Hitchens supports a ‘burka ban’

Christopher Hitchens“Last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his support for legislation to ban the burka, the dark, heavy and not-too-comfortable garment worn by many Muslim women. The question arises: Is this forcible French secularism run amok, or a prohibition that Americans, who often believe we have struck a better balance between church and state, might entertain? I would say the latter….

“It is quite plainly designed by men for the subjugation of women. One cannot be absolutely sure that no woman has ever donned it voluntarily, but one can certainly say that, in countries where women can choose not to wear it, then not wearing it is the choice they generally make. This disposes right away of the phony argument that religious attire is worn as a matter of ‘right’. … Western masochism about other people’s ‘culture’ often obscures this obvious fact.

“Think of the things that we all have to do now, like submitting to humiliating searches at airports, or showing our ID to people who have no ‘probable cause’ for demanding it. Can we turn up at airport security wearing a bag over our heads? Can we produce a photograph that shows only our eyes through a slit? Of course not….

“And don’t force me to say this, even though I will: One reason we have to undergo such indignities is because of faith-based suicide attacks on our civil aviation, and so far the perpetrators of this nightmare have not been caught wearing crucifixes or Stars of David around their necks….

“It is depressing that our President, in addressing the Muslim world, takes the most reactionary religious practice as the symbol of rights and identity. The klansman’s hood, remember, is also the symbol of a white Protestant religious ‘identity’ movement.”

Christopher Hitchens in the New York Daily News, 1 July 2009

More anti-Muslim nonsense from the Express

“The Daily Express is an odious little right-wing newspaper owned by a pornographer. Its coverage of Muslims makes me laugh out loud, although I have no doubt the intention is to fan anti-Muslim hatred, including Police Give Muslims in Cells Compasses To Pray Towards Mecca. At 30p each, there is clearly an issue pertaining to the use of public resources here, especially given that 10% of male prisoners in England and Wales are Muslim (cost = £2500 approx). That would buy a Tory MP nearly two duck houses.”

Plimfix at Talk Islam, 1 July 2009

‘No to sharia law in Britain’

The Guardian for some reason sees fit to provide the discredited Denis MacEoin with a platform.

Meanwhile, over at the Independent, a generally balanced article, entitled “How do Britain’s sharia courts work, and are they a good thing?”, nevertheless includes the following bizarre assertion:

“On International Women’s Day, in March, there was a huge demonstration in London, backed by feminists, supporters of gay rights and others – including a substantial number of Muslims – who marched under a banner saying: ‘No sharia and faith-based laws – one law for all’.”

A huge demonstration? Give us a break. This is a reference to a sectarian stunt organised by the loopy Worker Communist Party of Iran which turned out to be a complete flop.

Update:  Inayat Bunglawala replies to Denis MacEoin.

Catholic college excludes Muslim woman who refused to remove veil

St MarysTwo pupils and their teacher were ordered to remove their face veils before they could make an official visit to a Roman Catholic school.

The party were from an Islamic school in Great Harwood, Lancs and were visiting St Mary’s College in nearby Blackburn, which was staging its annual open day.

The two schoolgirls agreed to take off their niqab veils. However, their teacher refused and was taken into an office at the sixth form college and told she would not be allowed on the premises.

St Mary’s College yesterday defended the move, claiming that staff had requested that the trio remove the traditional Islamic veils because they are against the school’s dress policy.

Its principal Kevin McMahon said: “At the start of one of our ‘taster days’ for prospective students last week, some visitors did arrive wearing the veil. When the policy was explained to them, all except one were willing to remove it. This lady – a member of staff at the school – refused, and opted to leave the premises.”

Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2009

See also the Times, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.

Toube demands an apology

DavidToubeSpare a thought for poor, maligned David Toube. Today he posts an indignant article complaining that Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition has misrepresented him and his fellow bloggers at Harry’s Place. She can only get away with this, Toube writes piously, because she knows that “as a matter of principle, I will not sue for defamation”. Given that Toube regularly denounces Muslim activists he disagrees with as racists and fascists, and once described Inayat Bunglawala and myself as the “ideological wing” of the terrorists responsible for the attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport, perhaps he should be grateful that his opponents apply the same principle when responding to his attacks on them.

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Veil is ‘a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values’

“Hats off (or should that be chapeaux off?) to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for calling for a ban on the burkha in France…. No British politician would be brave enough to do what Sarkozy did or to follow through with what will almost certainly be a nation-wide ban on the burkha. Our politicians are, unlike our European amis, too cowed by political correctness and misguided multiculturalism to speak out on such a difficult topic and risk offending the two-million-strong Muslim population.

“Except the burkha isn’t a Muslim issue. It’s a British issue. It doesn’t just demean the woman who wears it, it also demeans the men and women who have to see her wearing it…. The idea of a ban is certainly not preposterous…. As Sarkozy pointed out the burkha is a political, not a religious, statement…. It is a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values and belief in the equality of men and women.”

Julia Hartley-Brewer in the Daily Express, 29 June 2009

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