Judge tosses Savage’s suit against Islamic group

Posted on July 26, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Savage Nation SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage against an Islamic civil rights group over its use of a portion of his show in which he called the Quran a “book of hate.”

Savage sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, for copyright infringement and racketeering in a lawsuit late last year, claiming the group violated his rights by using a segment of his “Savage Nation” show in a letter-writing campaign to get advertisers to boycott the program. In the broadcast used by CAIR, Savage also called the Muslim holy book “a throwback document.”

In her ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said people who listen to a public broadcast are entitled to use excerpts for purposes of comment and criticism. She also said no evidence was presented to show that advertising on the show’s broadcast was affected by CAIR’s actions.

The racketeering element of the lawsuit alleged that CAIR was not a civil rights group, but a political organization with ties to terrorist groups. CAIR denies those claims, saying it opposes terrorism and religious extremism.

In an interview with The Associated Press after he filed the lawsuit in December, Savage said he was referring to Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his violent brand of Islamic extremism in the broadcast, not about the religion in general.

Savage’s attorney, Daniel Horowitz, told the San Francisco Chronicle he plans to file a new racketeering suit.

Associated Press, 26 July 2008

See also “Suit against ‘Savage Nation’ radio host tossed”, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 July 2008

What is Nick Cohen playing at?

Posted on July 26, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Sunny Hundal poses the question, in response to Cohen’s Evening Standard article applauding Anthony Browne, recently appointed to a senior position in London mayor Boris Johnson’s administration, for having “stood up for free speech and against liberal alliances with radical Islam, and exposed the civil servants who were pretending that a rise in HIV was due to poor sex education rather than immigration from African countries”.

Pickled Politics, 25 July 2008

Vandal jailed for racist campaign

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Police hope the the amount of graffiti in Hanworth will drop dramatically following the conviction of a racist vandal. Robert Whitehouse admitted scrawling offensive graffiti all over Hanworth and was jailed for two months on July 11 at Feltham Magistrates Court after being caught in the act on May 2 spray painting an anti-Islamic message.

Sgt Darren Weston, who leads Hanworth Park Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT), said: “We’ve had an ongoing problem with racist graffiti but this was the most intensive campaign we’ve seen.”

Whitehouse, 42, of Almond Close, Feltham, pleaded guilty to charges of committing racially and religiously-aggravated criminal damage and going equipped to charge criminal damage and saw his sentence cut from 12 to eight weeks in light of his guilty plea. .

“We were driving around looking for the person responsible,” said arresting officer PC Adam Pearson-Smith. “It had been going on for about four months and we kept missing him by a little bit so we were delighted to finally catch him.”

When the officers stopped Whitehouse and demanded he turn out his pockets they found a spray can and stickers referring to the far-right British National Party.

Sgt Weston added: “Graffiti is a high-priority issue for our residents who have told us it gives a poor impression of the area and makes them feel unsafe. We hope they’ll be as pleased as we are.”

Hounslow Chronicle, 24 July 2008

Treat Muslims better, Britain told by UN

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Britain has been told by the United Nations to challenge negative public views towards the Muslim community.

The nine-member human rights committee composed of legal experts, said it was concerned “negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society” continued to be allowed in Britain. It recommended the Government “should take energetic measures to eliminate this phenomenon and ensure that authors of such acts of discrimination on the basis of religion are adequately deterred and sanctioned.”

The committee also expressed concern over the Government’s plan to extend detention of terrorist suspects without trial from 28 to 42 days. Those suspected of terrorism should be promptly charged and taken to court within a reasonable period of time, while their lawyers should have access to the evidence against them.

The committee contains members from Britain, Ireland, Australia, Benin, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Mauritius and Sweden – all are expected to be independent from their governments. Their comments come in response to reports from the UK and Ireland on how to carry out their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Daily Telegraph, 25 July 2008

The Blears fallacy

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Soumaya Ghannoushi2 “The communities’ secretary seems to be pursuing an increasingly hawkish policy towards the Muslim minority. A few days ago, she gave a provocative and rather bizarre speech fittingly delivered from the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange, which was last year discredited by the BBC’s Newsnight for its fabricated mosque report. Blears announced a long list of conditions which Muslim organisations must meet if they are to enjoy government recognition, or ‘legitimisation’.

“Hearing Blears demand the recognition of Israel, it was difficult to tell whether one was listening to a foreign, or communities’ secretary, and whether those she had been targeting were diplomats and foreign ministers, or communities and British citizens. And when she echoed former Policy Exchange chairman Charles Moore’s criticisms of the IslamExpo, recently held in Olympia, for giving floor space to the ‘genocidal’ government of Iran – one of 15 Muslim countries represented at the event – one couldn’t help wondering if her government had just cut off diplomatic ties with Tehran, and closed its embassy in London.

“Brown’s government, like its predecessor, seems unable to relinquish the old approach to communities based on the systems and methods of the colonial era. Minorities are to be managed through many sticks, a few carrots, and a handful of engineered political and religious representatives. These are the modern-day versions of the local intermediaries on whom colonial administrations relied in the control of indigenous populations. The rule is simple. To win recognition, you must lose any independence. You must turn into the government’s eyes, ears and arms in your community, nothing more.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi at Comment is Free, 25 July 2008

Muslim schools fuel segregation, say teachers (well, one right-wing teacher)

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Government plans to create more state-funded Muslim schools will divide communities along racial and religious lines, it is claimed. They risk creating a situation similar to that in Northern Ireland where some educated teenagers fail to meet students of the opposite faith until they go to university, according to Voice, the teaching union. In a speech to the union’s annual conference next week, one teacher will claim Labour’s policy to expand Muslim schools is “about trying to defend minorities”.

Last year, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, pledged to remove “unnecessary barriers” to religious groups bidding to open their own schools. He said additional money would be made available to allow the hundreds of private religious schools to convert to the state sector. The move raised the prospect of more schools for faiths including Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, which have few schools of their own, despite representing significant minority groups.

Speaking at the conference, Wesley Paxton, a further education lecturer from Hull, will say: “As is often pointed out, there are already many schools with more than a 50 per cent non-white enrolment.

“More faith schools in 2008 is probably going to mean more Islamic schools.” He adds: “What benefit will there be by emphasising difference, by removing what non-Islamic influences these people will have, and reduce their chances of having a balanced upbringing?”

At the moment, there are just four state-funded Muslim primary schools and five secondaries – including two which opened last September. They educate almost 3,500 pupils. In addition, there is one Hindu school, three Sikh schools, and 38 Jewish schools. England’s remaining 6,750 faith schools – around a third of the total number of schools – are all Christian.

Daily Telegraph, 25 July 2008

‘Why can’t people respect my choice?’ asks Faiza Silmi

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

In addition to excerpts from the NYT interview with Faiza Silmi, the Muslim woman whose application for French citizenship was rejected because she wore the niqab, Islam in Europe cites an article from the Danish paper Kristeligt Dagblad which quotes Faiza Silmi as saying:

“… it’s pure rubbish that I’m oppressed by my husband and all the men in his family. I go in and out of the apartment when it fits me. My youngest is two, but when the children are bigger I would like to work. I’m a trained seamstress and would like to continue in my profession…. I thought France was a free country, where people can live as they want. I respect others’ choice to go in jeans or miniskirts. Why can’t people respect my choice of something else.”

Two Muslim women file suit, say McDonald’s banned headscarves

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bob Pitt

McDonald's headscarf ban DEARBORN, MICH. — Two Muslim women say the manager of a McDonald’s restaurant refused to hire them and insulted them during job interviews because they wear traditional Islamic dress.

Toi Whitfield, 20, of Detroit, and Quiana Pugh, 25, of Dearborn, filed a lawsuit Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court against McDonald’s, the owner of the local franchise and its unnamed manager. Their representative said they are considering filing civil rights complaints with the federal and state governments.

“I applied for the McDonald’s position maybe two weeks ago and he simply (told me) I had to make a choice and remove my hijab, or I would not be able to establish employment there,” Pugh said.

The restaurant in question sits amid one of the largest concentrations of commercial businesses for Arab-Americans in the country. Like many of the national chain fast-food establishments in the area, it has long served some halal food, which conforms to Muslim dietary requirements. “This manager must have just stepped off of some spaceship to think he can do this in this back yard, in Dearborn,” said Nabih Ayad, a civil rights lawyer who represents the women.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan, said that he has eaten at McDonald’s restaurants in Turkey that cater to Muslims and employ them, including numerous women who cover. “It is extremely disturbing that such discrimination could take place at a location which does not mind collecting Muslim dollars, yet places restriction on Muslim women who wear hijab.”

Whitfield said the manager told her she could not wear her headscarf because, “It gets too hot back there.” “I hope that they learn from their mistakes,” she said. “They should not discriminate against people. Everyone should have an equal chance to work at McDonald’s.”

Detroit News, 25 July 2008

Scottish ‘Islamist terrorist’ wins appeal fight

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Bob Pitt

“Scotland’s first Islamist terrorist today won the right to argue he did not get a fair trial. Mohammed Atif Siddique, 22, was jailed for eight years last October for a string of terror offences. He has always maintained his innocence.”

Herald, 23 July 2008

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but if Mohammed Atif Siddique is indeed innocent – and Islamophobia Watch has argued strongly that he is – then he’d hardly be “Scotland’s first Islamist terrorist”, would he? Or has the Herald decided the result of the appeal in advance?

Muslims take police to task over stop-and-search procedures

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Scottish Islamic Foundation Scottish Muslims will today quiz police about “growing disquiet” over the use of anti-terrorist stop-and-search procedures in Scotland.

The Scottish-Islamic Foundation has set up a Question Time forum with the police to allow members of the Muslim community to express their feelings about heavy-handed questioning a year after stop- and-search powers were introduced across the UK in the wake of the Glasgow Airport car bomb attack.

There is concern that in some cases “suspects” are visited at home and questioned about internet sites they have viewed, fuelling fears that they are under surveillance. The foundation says that stop-and-search procedures should be strictly intelligence-led.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, at the Home Secretary’s discretion, allows police to stop and search any individual acting suspiciously.

Although Scottish police have been using the power sparingly, it is claimed the approach has not been adopted by the London-controlled British Transport Police.

Herald, 22 July 2008