Two arrested over Mido chanting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MidoTwo men have been arrested over racist chanting aimed at Middlesbrough’s Egyptian striker Mido during the 0-0 draw against Newcastle on 29 November. The pair, aged 49 and 23, will appear before Teesside Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with racial chanting.

A Football Association spokesman said: “The FA condemns any racist or Islamaphobic behaviour and is committed to working to stamp it out. We will fully support banning orders for anyone found guilty.”

Mido, 25, suffered similar abuse during the corresponding fixture at the Riverside last season but no action was taken because police were unable to identify the culprits. “It happened again because after the first time the English FA did nothing,” Mido told Egyptian TV station Al Hayat.

Piara Powar, director of anti-racism campaign Kick It Out, believes the authorities should be able to identify the culprits via closed-circuit television footage and has called on football supporters to help “self-police” any racist incidents on the terraces.

“The police are now saying they are going to put in extra monitoring for the next game, but by then it will be too late,” he said. “What we need is for the police to go over the CCTV footage and do what they can, in similar way which they are in Hampshire concerning the recent incident with the Tottenham fans at Portsmouth.

“The key change we do have in English football now is there is self-policing, peer pressure which supporters who understand the implications can put on fans who are involved in abuse. We would urge Newcastle fans to start rooting out themselves the individuals who were involved.”

BBC News, 5 December 2008

‘One Law for All’ – another Islamophobic WPI fraud

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2The One Law for All campaign – supported by the National Secular Society – is to be launched in the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, 10 December.

According to campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, “Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children. Moreover, its voluntary nature is a sham; many women will be pressured into going to these courts and abiding by their decisions. These courts are a quick and cheap route to injustice and do nothing to promote minority rights and social cohesion. Public interest, particularly with regard to women and children, requires an end to Sharia and all other faith-based courts and tribunals.”

The campaign has already received widespread support.

National Secular Society news report, 5 December 2008

Sure it’s received wide support. The campaign is backed by a total of ten organisations, five of which – Children First Now, the laughably misnamed Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, the International Committee against Stoning and the Iranian Secular Society – are all front organisations for the Islamophobic far-left sect, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran. You do sometimes wonder whether the WPI has more front organisations than members.

School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school.

That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side.

The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: “The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. I have never heard of this at a school. It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children in the nativity.”

Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2008

See also the Daily Mail, 4 December 2008

Yes, it’s another of those seasonal “Christmas banned because of Muslims” stories. However, according to a Press Association report, the performance has not in fact been cancelled but only postponed till January – and it’s not a nativity play but a pantomine (Cinderella, since you ask). A spokeswoman for Nottingham City Council is quoted as saying that in December the school will be staging “a range of events, including a Christmas carol concert and Eid celebrations”.

Predictably, the story has been seized on by the BNP. Under the headline “Nottingham school cancels Christmas to make way for Islam“, the fascists declare that “such outrages will inevitably progress from the exception to the norm, if Britain fails to embrace the BNP and continues its present headlong plunge into the abyss”.

The Nottingham Evening Post reports that Greenwood Junior School has received phone calls from BNP members accusing the school of responsibility for the “erosion of Christian values”. In other words, we have here yet another example of the mainstream media’s biased and inaccurate reporting giving a boost to the far right.

Inspector Andy Townsend, the local area commander, is quoted as saying: “There have been a lot of angry people phoning the school, some of whom are claiming to be from the BNP. Other agencies including the national press have contacted the school, including one journalist pretending to be a social worker. There’s also been vans pulling up and people taking pictures. We are dealing with the potential for disorder. No actual criminal acts have been committed but we are increasing patrols in the area around the school to keep the peace.”

Update:  Needless to say, this distorted report has spread across the right-wing blogosphere. Here is a characteristic comment, by Phyllis Chesler: “Muslim fanatics are also demographically populating beachheads deep in the West where they are also demanding that their holidays be recognized in a more paramount way than Christian holidays are. Just yesterday, in England, a Nativity play was cancelled at a primary school because it interfered with the Muslim celebration of Eid.”

Mattel doll continues to propagate Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam is the light dollRemember this story? Well, apparently there’s now an entire website devoted to the campaign to save innocent Christian children in the US from falling into the clutches of Islam.

It’s run by Moms Ask Mattel for Accountability (MAMA) which describes itself as “a public education effort by concerned families to protect children from being invited to join Islam, without their parents’ knowledge or permission. Mattel, the largest toy maker in the world, is still selling a toy that says ‘Islam is the Light’ – the Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle & Coo Doll, in spite of protests by parents, media and store owners.”

Scotland’s first Muslim police association launched

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Strathclyde PoliceScotland’s first Muslim Police Association has been launched in Glasgow. Strathclyde Police Muslim Association will look at boosting the recruitment and retention of Muslim officers. It will also aim to improve understanding of the faith with the public and tackle “Islamophobia”.

Scotland’s first Muslim police officer, Pc Amar Shakoor, will act as chair of the newly-established group, which aims to recruit up to 50 members. Pc Shakoor said the Strathclyde force employed about 55 Muslim police officers and civilians, who he hoped would become involved.

“We hope that the association will help to recruit more officers and civilian staff for Strathclyde Police from a Muslim background,” he said. “The aim is to build bridges with the Muslim community and work better with all people for the future.”

First Minister Alex Salmond, who attended the launch, described it as a “significant step forward in strengthening relations between Strathclyde Police and Muslim communities”.

“Scotland’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and it’s important we encourage dialogue and partnership across all faiths if we are to make Scotland a safer and stronger society,” he said. “The association is a positive step towards making Strathclyde Police more effective in understanding and responding to community concerns.”

BBC News, 3 December 2008

See also Scottish Government news release, 3 December 2008

There’s one person who won’t be happy at this news: “According to Munira Mirza, the Mayor of London’s adviser on cultural affairs, by creating a separate tier of police to liase with Muslims, it encourages many of them to believe that they cannot approach non-Muslim officers with their culturally-specific problems: ‘this reinforces tribalism and division, rather than helping us to overcome it’.”

Given Boris Johnson’s newly discovered commitment to diversity, you do wonder why he saw fit to appoint as his director of culture someone who publicly condemns the self-organisation of minority communities as “tribalism”. Does this reflect his administration’s view of the role played by the Association of Muslim Police in the MPS?

Young Muslims not a threat – study

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fears that British universities are hotbeds of Islamic radicalism have been exaggerated, academics have said. A Cambridge University report found most young British Muslims were not a threat.

The study, based on interviews with students in London, Cambridge and Bradford, concluded they were better integrated into society than their parents.

June Edmunds, of the university’s Centre for Development Studies, said: “The findings show that the young Muslims best equipped to lead radical opposition to western society are also among the least inclined to do so.

“Although a minority have extreme political views, most are concerned about human rights and social democracy.

“The UK, in particular, now hosts a new generation of Muslims who are more confident of their national identity and more politically engaged than their parents.”

She added: “The overall picture is of a new, settled generation of young Muslims whose interests and needs differ from those of the previous, immigrant generation.”

Press Association, 3 December 2008

Well, that’s not going to please Anthony Glees, is it?

See also June Edmunds’ piece at Comment is Free, 2 December 2008

Update:  Glees is indeed unhappy. See his comments in “Study challenges claims of Islamic extremism among students” on theGuardian website. Glees accuses the report’s authors of “flimsy and uncompelling” research and expresses his amazement that the Economic and Social Research Council should fund it. Presumably the ESRC’s money would be better spent supporting Glees’s own irresponsible, fear-mongering attacks on Muslim students.

Further update:  Glees now has an entire blog post replying to June Edmunds. His basic argument is that a handful of individuals found guilty of terrorist offences had previously attended colleges in the UK – though of course he fails to establish any causal link between the two. And this is the man who accuses others of “flimsy and uncompelling” research.

Yet another update:  See June Edmunds’ response to Glees, “Study was informed by wide research“.

One more update: The Centre for Social Cohesion denounces the Cambridge study as “inaccurate and unrepresentative”.

‘Sharia law threatens America’ claims right-wing group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sharia Law Threatens America

Shariah, or Islamic law, may be spreading around the world, but it isn’t going to be established in the United States without opposition, vow members of the United American Committee. Officials with the non-profit have erected a 48-foot-long billboard just outside of Detroit, home to one of the largest groups of Muslims in the U.S. “SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA,” warns the sign

WorldNetDaily, 28 November 2008

Ed Husain – how long before he joins the Tory party?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ed_Husain“Britain’s Muslims are at a critical juncture. A fortnight ago, a terrorism-supporting group gathered with 300 supporters in council property in Britain’s most densely Muslim-populated area, Tower Hamlets, and called for rejection of British law and support for convicted terrorists in prison. They beamed in from Lebanon the banned cleric Omar Bakri, who called on young Muslims to disobey the law….

“In Britain’s most prominent mosque, in Regent’s Park, there are meetings every weekend of a group dedicated to creating an Islamist dictatorship, destroying Israel and which advocates Muslim supremacist views. These lines will be read: nothing will be done. Muslim leaders will remain as ostriches, and wider society will not ‘interfere’, lest we cause ‘offence’….

“Matters are made worse by unsustainable levels of immigration flooding our mosques; men with no experience of British society and a poor grasp of English becoming imams and spreading their ideas throughout Muslim communities. Just as we adjust to our surroundings in Britain, a new wave of immigrants are reintroducing village dialects, customs and attire, and adding to the confusion of young British Pakistanis or Bengalis. The British people deserve a serious debate on immigration, free from yells of racism….

“I am a member of Labour and I am ashamed that the party, after 11 years in power, shies away from addressing the failures of multiculturalism. Pandering to so-called cultural differences has led to more than 70 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women in Britain today being unemployed.”

Ed Husain in the Sunday Telegraph, 30 November 2008

It would be tempting to observe that the Whittaker Chambers of Islamism has found his rightful home – in a right-wing Tory newspaper. Unfortunately, it is not only the Tories who are eager to give Ed Husain a platform. There are idiots in the Labour government – notably Hazel Blears at DCLG – who take this charlatan seriously.

Mind you, if Cameron wins the next general election, or is clearly on course to win it, I think we can anticipate Husain swiftly ditching Labour in favour of the Tories, who will find the support of an embittered ex-Islamist particularly useful in their assault on multiculturalism, not to mention their plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. His Sunday Telegraph piece certainly looks like a pitch for an invitation from the Tory party.