Italian priest puts mosque in nativity scene, Lega Nord reacts with fury

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mario BorghezioItaly’s Right-wing Northern League have reacted with fury after it emerged that a Roman Catholic priest added a model mosque to his church’s nativity scene. The League, which has campaigned against the building of new mosques, bitterly attacked Father Prospero Bonzani as an “imbecile”.

The miniature mosque, complete with a minaret, was included in the skyline of Bethlehem in the nativity scene at Father Bonzani’s Our Lady of Providence church in the northern port of Genova.

Mario Borghezio [pictured], a Northern League MEP, called the priest an “imbecile” and said: “What on earth possessed him to put a mosque in a traditional Christmas nativity scene? I hope that the Church authorities in Genova will investigate this as a matter of urgency.” He added: “What will this priest do when he says Mass during Ramadan? Ask us to turn towards Mecca? He may as well have included a suicide bomber wearing dynamite.”

But Father Bonzani said that his nativity scene was designed to send a message of inter-faith harmony. “I included the mosque as a sign that we should have more dialogue with the Muslim faith. I do not have any regrets. At the end of the day the most important thing to focus on here is the Holy Family. I have only one had one complaint from within the parish and that’s it.”

Daily Telegraph, 25 December 2008

Indulgence of Islam is harming society, says Damian Thompson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Damian_Thompson“Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Britain: the number of Muslims has grown from 1.6 million to two million since 2000. Moreover, every major public institution has changed its policies to accommodate the demands of Islamic ‘community leaders’. The Government, the Opposition, the police, schools, the Church of England, the BBC and now Channel 4 are all helping Muslims construct a parallel Islamic state…. For the first time in decades, religion is moulding public life in this country; but that religion is not Christianity.”

Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson continues what appears to be a campaign aimed at making Melanie Phillips look relatively sane.

Daily Telegraph, 26 December 2008

The fascists of the BNP find that Thompson’s piece so perfectly reflects their own views that they reproduce it in its entirety, adding the following conclusion:

“When will the people of Britain wake up to the threat that lies within our country? When you will have to step on to the road for Muslims to walk safely by? When someone you know is stoned to death for being raped? When family pets are slaughtered for being ‘unclean’? When animals are halal butchered in the street? When homosexuals are murdered? Or when the sword is at your throat and you have to decide – be a Muslim or die?”

Police to get training after head-scarf wearer’s arrest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DOUGLASVILLE, Georgia — The Douglasville Police Department said Monday its officers will undergo “sensitivity and cultural diversity training” after a Muslim woman who refused to remove her head scarf at a courthouse was jailed. “We never want this to happen again. It’s not our intent to embarrass anybody,” Police Chief Joe Whisenant said at a news conference. The judge who had the woman jailed briefly for contempt of court will also take part in the training, Whisenant said.

CNN, 23 December 2008

9,000 Muslims in UK prisons for terror offences, claims BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails – with 90 percent of them serving time for terror offences”, claims the BNP.

This is evidently taken from a News of the World report which states: “There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails – with 90 of them serving time for terror offences.” Even allowing that this figure is accurate (which we doubt – the total number of convictions under the Terrorism Act 2000 is far less than that) the BNP has contrived to increase it by 8,910!

However, it would perhaps be unduly harsh to accuse the fascists of manipulating statistics for political ends. A more charitable explanation would be that they’re just plain thick.

The witch-hunt of Asghar Bukhari

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AsgharA London-based think tank has revealed that the co-founder of a Muslim communal organization whose spokespeople are used by mainstream media outlets has glorified terrorism and attacks on Israel.

The Center for Social Cohesion (CSC) reported that last week Asghar Bukhari, co-founder and spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC UK), said on the social networking site Facebook that any Muslim who died fighting Israel was a martyr.

Responding to comments by another contributor on a discussion entitled ‘Has Europe come to terms with Islam?’, Bukhari said, “Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are mujahadeen and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise.”

The Muslim leader went on to justify jihadism, saying, “The concept of jihad is a beautiful thing, and logical to those with a sincere heart. It tells the human being to stand up and fight against those who bring evil and oppression on this earth, and by standing up – roll back that oppression until the people are free from it.”

CSC called into question the media outlets’ use of MPAC UK and their portrayal of it as a mainstream Muslim organization. “The leadership of MPAC UK has been shown before to have expressed opinions which border on glorification of terrorism,” said Robin Simcox, a CSC researcher.

“Concern has previously been expressed to the BBC and other media about their continuing use of Bukhari and his organization. Despite this, they are regularly treated by the BBC and other mainstream media as representative of mainstream Muslim opinion,” Simcox said.

“Bukhari’s incitement and likely illegal public comments should be a matter of grave concern to broadcasters and others who have repeatedly given him and his organization a platform,” Simcox added.

The think tank has reported the incident to the police.

Jerusalem Post, 22 December 2008

The article is in fact almost a straight reprint of a (pdf) CSC briefing.

Predictably Damian Thompson and Melanie Phillips have seized on this, with the latter calling for Asghar to be prosecuted.

Read MPAC’s reponse here. They rightly accuse the CSC of “wasting police time by reporting Asghar Bukhari for supposedly contravening the new law banning ‘glorification of terrorism’. MPACUK – who actually care about stopping terrorism – expect our taxes to be spent trying to prevent anyone from blowing us up on tube trains (not dealing with politically-motivated malicious reports against media spokespeople from Muslim groups!)”

Once again we have a witch-hunt against mainstream Muslims, the origin of which can be traced back to the Islamophobic cesspool that is Harry’s Place.

Update:  See also ENGAGE’s letter to Damian Thompson, challenging him over his support for the CSC.

Established Church needed to hold Islam at bay, says Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainMelanie Phillips warns against proposals to disestablish the Church of England:

“Christianity is not just any faith. It lies at the heart of British values and Western civilisation. Breaking the link would mean Christianity would be cast adrift, along with many of this country’s values. The Church might not be destroyed, but the country’s core identity would undoubtedly suffer.

“And the plain fact is that Britain is not multicultural. Parts of it are multi-ethnic, with large pockets of immigrants from other nations, but that is a very different matter. Britain remains a Protestant Christian country, and most Britons define themselves as such.

“… the undermining of Christianity from within is being exploited by militant Islamist fanatics who want to turn Britain into an Islamic state. This might seem an impossible notion, until you recall the way Dr Williams – followed by the senior judge Lord Phillips – said there was nothing to be feared from the encroachment within Britain of Islamic sharia law, regardless of the fact that such law is based on principles which are inimical to Christianity and liberal democracy.

“The only way to defend British and Western society from such cultural attack is to re-assert a confident Christianity. Yet Dr Williams spends all his time apologising for the faith he supposedly represents….

“Maybe we can’t any longer hold off the demand for ‘equality’ between Christianity and the other faiths that make up modern Britain. But in that case we have to accept that Britain and its values will be utterly changed, and not for the better.”

Daily Mail, 22 December 2008

Update:  See the response from ENGAGE to Phillips’ article.

Fascists accuse anti-fascists of … supporting fascism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tyndall and fellow NazisThe fascist British National Party has produced a “briefing” on Unite Against Fascism. The document employs the now familiar tactic, adopted by the BNP in imitation of Le Pen’s Front National in France, of turning the accusations made by its political opponents against the accusers themselves.

Thus the BNP condemns UAF as “a racist organisation” whose members are “prepared to to embrace movements (or representatives of those movements) whose ideological roots are fundamentally based on fascistic ideology, and which have close and extensive historical links to Nazism”.

This sets a new standard in brazen hypocrisy, coming from a party whose constitution requires that all its members must be from the “Indigenous Caucasian” racial group and commits it to “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration” and to restoring “the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948” – a party, moreover, whose founder and long-time leader was the notorious Nazi admirer John Tyndall (standing on the left of the photograph).

Who are the “fascist groups” that UAF has supposedly embraced? Predictably, they are grouped by the BNP under the heading of “Islamo-Nazism” – a category which, according to the BNP, prominently features the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest and most representative Islamic organisation in the UK. The BNP informs us that “the historical link between extremist Islam and Nazism is well known”, the “evidence” for this assertion being the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s attempts to build an alliance with Nazi Germany.

But where does the BNP get all this nonsense about “Islamic fascism” from, and the fantasy about the MCB being an extremist organisation? Well, the main source they cite is none other than Martin Bright. They footnote both his Observer article from July 2006, “Right showing left the way on radical Islam”, and his pamphlet When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, published in 2006 by the right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange. (As we commented at the time: “When it comes to treating with reactionaries, Bright can evidently speak from first-hand experience.”)

Bright, of course, has used the fascists’ own tactic of generating a smokescreen by accusing his opponents of the very political crimes for which he himself is responsible. A piece on his New Statesman blog, entitled “Where the hard left and extreme right meet”, drew a bizarre parallel between the Holocaust denier Michele Renouf and Islamophobia Watch. In response we pointed to the BNP’s support for Bright’s views and argued that it was more a case of “where liberal Islamophobes and the extreme right meet”. The fascists’ endorsement of Bright’s writings in their latest anti-Muslim rant reinforces that point.

Arson attack damages Lyon mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Saint Priest mosque arsonA mosque near the southeast city of Lyon was slightly damaged by fire early Saturday in an attack that the French interior ministry in Paris said was arson.

The fire broke out at the entrance to the mosque in the suburb of Saint Priest but did not spread and the only damage to the interior was caused by smoke, police said. However, an AFP photographer saw a number of burned books from a bookcase which had been standing next to the door.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie had written to the president of the French council of Muslims, Mohammed Moussaoui, to convey her concern at the arson attack on the mosque, the ministry in Paris said.

The ministry added that police forensics experts were working to “find who was responsible for this intolerable and cowardly attack as soon as possible.”

The mosque rector, Kamal Kabtane, condemned “the rise in racism and Islamophobia” and called for a demonstration on Sunday outside the mosque when he visited the scene with the local mayor.

He referred to recent anti-Islamic incidents in France, including an attack on another mosque in the Lyon area in August and the desecration of 500 Muslim soldiers’ tombs in a war cemetery in the north of the country earlier this month.

Police said they had found a number of clues which were expected to aid them in their inquiries.

AFP, 22 December 2008

See also “Lyons: Arson at mosque”, Islam in Europe, 21 December 2008

And “Sarkozy condemns racist arson attack on mosque”, Expatica, 22 December 2008

Saint-Priest demonstration

Wal-Mart saves US children from conversion to Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

WAL-MART SAYS YES TO PARENTS – REMOVES “ISLAM IS THE LIGHT” DOLL:
Parents campaign focuses on Target, Kmart and Toys R Us

Wal-Mart managers are removing the Mattel doll that says “Islam is the Light” from store shelves, according to reports from parents and the media across the U.S. and Canada, as well as Wal-Mart employees. Many Wal-Mart managers have removed the controversial doll in the last two weeks, and others are removing it as soon as parents ask.

The Moms Ask Mattel for Accountability (MAMA) campaign to remove the doll began in late November on “Black” Friday, the year’s biggest shopping day. The national MAMA campaign started as a response to parent concerns about the Mattel/Fisher Price “Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo Doll.” The majority of “Little Mommy Cuddle and Coo” dolls on store shelves have an audio soundtrack that says “Islam is the Light,” with no label or warning to parents on the doll’s packaging that it advocates Islam to their young children, a practice known as “Dawa.”

MAMA has advised parents in the U.S. and Canada to ask retailers either to remove the doll from the shelves or to attach a label stating “NOTICE: This doll says ‘Islam is the light’, an invitation to your child to join Islam.” MAMA is concerned that an invitation to Islam is a material risk to young girls, because of the discriminatory Islamic law known as Shariah, and wants parents informed about the doll’s statement before they purchase the doll.

“Parents are reporting that most Wal-Marts have already removed the doll, or immediately remove it when asked,” said Denise Lee, founder of Moms Ask Mattel for Accountability. “And TV and newspaper stories are reporting the same policy changes. MAMA applauds Wal-Mart for taking the lead here in responding to parents’ concerns, especially over the Christmas season.”

MAMA website, 19 December 2008