Australian Muslims win fight for mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdul AzizThe small but determined Muslim community in Cairns has finally won the right to build the city’s first mosque after an eight-year battle against an at-times hostile community and claims the religion was trying to “spread its tentacles” to north Queensland.

Work is expected to begin on the mosque within weeks after the Planning and Environment Court dismissed the final group of objections, noting freedom of religion was part of the fabric of the Australian community. “It is in the public interest that persons who choose that faith, just as those who choose any other faith, have access to a safe and reasonably comfortable place of gathering and worship,” judge Keith Dodds said.

Cairns imam Abdul Aziz Mohammed, a former cane farmer and Rotary stalwart whose father moved to the city from India in 1900, yesterday welcomed the decision. He said the ordeal to build the mosque had been the first time he had experienced racism in the 76 years he had lived in the region. “A lot of the objections were just crazy,” he said. “I mean, they wouldn’t know what goes on in a mosque. I was disappointed, but you’ve got to remember the objectors didn’t really number that many.”

Opponents claimed Mr Mohammed was planning to build a “mega-mosque” in the suburban street and that it would become a hotbed of terrorism.

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Muslim physicist says feds retaliated against him

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdel-Moniem El-GanayniPITTSBURGH — An Islamic nuclear physicist on Thursday accused the U.S. Department of Energy of revoking his security clearance in retaliation for his criticism of the government’s treatment of Muslims.

Moniem El-Ganayni had worked at the Bettis Laboratory in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin for 18 years. He was fired in May after the department revoked his security clearance, according to a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Department of Energy denied El-Ganayni the right to appeal the revocation by saying its reasons are classified and could violate national security if made public. El-Ganayni is demanding that he be allowed to contest it before a “nonpolitical, neutral arbiter as mandated by DOE regulations.”

“Everything I strived for all my life came to an end without a chance to defend myself,” said El-Ganayni, 57, an Egyptian who moved to the United States in 1980.

Bettis Laboratory works on the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, a joint Navy-Energy Department program responsible for nearly all aspects of U.S. nuclear-powered warships. El-Ganayni’s security clearance granted him access to classified information needed for his job.

El-Ganayni has been active in Pittsburgh’s Muslim community, helped establish one of the area’s first mosques and is a past president of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. He has given speeches critical of U.S. foreign policy, the war in Iraq and attempts by the FBI to recruit Muslim tipsters inside mosques. El-Ganayni has also ministered to Muslim prison inmates.

El-Ganayni has never received a negative report or evaluation from Bettis Laboratory, and even after the revocation process began, his superiors made it clear they would like to have him back, said Vic Walczak, the ACLU’s Pennsylvania legal director.

“The Energy Department knows it cannot admit that it revoked Dr. El-Ganayni’s clearance because he has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. government’s treatment of Muslims, so it is hiding behind ‘national security’ to avoid having to explain itself,” Walczak said.

El-Ganayni said he was questioned twice since October, when the Energy Department said disclosing the reasons for the revocation would hurt national security.

According to the lawsuit, officials with the Energy Department and FBI asked about El-Ganayni’s speeches, his views on suicide bombings and the Quran, and a conflict he had with the Pennsylvania prison system over a decision to bar him from raising funds for a Muslim religious feast.

Associated Press, 27 June 2008 

See also ACLU press release, 26 June 2008

Update:  See “Muslim physicist leaves U.S. after losing security clearance”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 28 November 2008

Islamophobia in a village

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Derby families say day trip to the picturesque Derbyshire village of Belpar was ruined by an Islamophobic attack.

Mohammed Khalifa, 37, and Nathalie Faustilio, 24, said the trip with their friends on May 18 went horribly wrong when Khalifa and his friend Hassan Sami, 21, left their wives and two young children alone in the River Garden in North Mill Bridgefoot to withdraw money. Faustilio, an Italian Muslim convert, and English convert, Soria Hawata, 21, were subjected to an unprovoked and sustained Islamophobic attack which left Khalifa with broken ribs and both women in constant fear.

Speaking to The Muslim News Faustilio said trouble began when she and her friend were left alone by their husbands in the park. “When they went to get money from the ATM machines a man started screaming really foul things at us.” Faustilio insists the nasty verbal abuse was so motiveless she initially thought he was aiming the expletives at his dog, “He was swearing and saying really bad things. At first I thought he was aiming his abuse at the dog then I found out he was aiming it at me.”

The hijab wearing ladies said they were told to remove their “Pakistani clothes”. “He told me and Soria to get out of the country, his exact words were ‘get the F@#ck out my country go back to Pakistan’. I told him I’m Italian and my friend was English and even if we weren’t it was none of his business.” The man continued to hurl verbal abuse at the two and even spat at Nathalie who said she had “never been subjected to Islamophobia at this level”.

Faustilio said she was left in tears when she noticed no one in the park came to their assistance. Instead, she said, a small crowd had gathered to watch. “A couple of people thought it was amusing and were smiling but they didn’t help us.”

“Only a lady working in the parks café called the police when Nathalie asked her to,” said Hawata.

Khalifa said he returned to see his wife being sworn and spat at, “I shoved him out of the way he pushed me. I pushed him back and we fought.” The police arrived as the fighting ensued. Faustilio said her husband, who had broken his rib and his friend were arrested, whilst the assailant was taken to hospital for his broken nose.

The women asked to go in the police car for protection but were told to walk. “Before my husband came the man called his mobile and said he was calling his mates to come over. The police said we had to walk to the police station in a village we didn’t know with two small children for 15 minutes. We got lost and were worried the man’s mates would come.”

However, later, Faustilio’s husband and his friend were released without charge.

Hawata also criticised Derbyshire police for not keeping them informed on the fate of their harasser, “They haven’t informed either me or Nathalie of what happened to the man. We know he was arrested at the time but we don’t know what else happened.”

“He lives in Derby near us and whenever I take public transport I worry that I might bump into him,” said Hawata.

A spokesperson for Derbshire police told The Muslim News, “A 39 year old man from Derby was taken to hospital where he had surgery on his nose. Once he was released from hospital he was arrested and questioned. He was released on bail and his case has been forwarded to the CPS for review.”

Muslim News, 27 June 2008

McEwan’s attack on Islam reveals only his ignorance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The more that the West demands change from outside, the more it makes such issues as women’s rights the litmus test of reform, the more difficult it makes the task of those pushing for change from within. The more it resorts to terms such as ‘Islamofacism’ and ‘mediaevalism’, the greater its ignorance of the pressures and the possibilities of societies in flux today. There are no generalities, just particulars, specific to place, person and moment.

“You would have thought that the novelist of all artists would understand this. Apparently not. But at least McEwan, Amis and the rest are showing one thing: that the condemnation of that which you have no wish to understand is as much the prerogative of the secularists as it is of the religious.”

Adrian Hamilton in the Independent, 26 June 2008

Spanish minister under fire for criticizing Islamic headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bibiano AidoSpain’s Equality Minister Bibiana Aido has angered Muslims by criticizing the Islamic headscarf, alleging that it undermines the rights of women, media reported Thursday. Muslim men could dress in Western clothes, Aido said, asking why women wearing loose clothes and headscarves could not do the same.

“Not all cultural practices must be protected and respected,” she said, expressing her opposition to practices “violating human rights and promoting inequality” between the sexes.

Muslim women “wear the veil because they feel like it,” representatives of Spain’s Muslim community responded, advising the minister “not to talk about what she does not know about.”

The Koran advised both men and women to dress modestly, said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Board.

Earth Times, 26 June 2008

Islamism = hatred and violence, says McEwan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Certain remarks of mine to an Italian journalist have been widely misrepresented in the UK press, and on various websites. Contrary to reports, my remarks were not about Islam, but about Islamism – perhaps ‘extremism’ would be a better term. I grew up in a Muslim country – Libya – and have only warm memories of a dignified, tolerant and hospitable Islamic culture. I was referring in my interview to a tiny minority who preach violent jihad, who incite hatred and violence against ‘infidels’, apostates, Jews and homosexuals; who in their speeches and on their websites speak passionately against free thought, pluralism, democracy, unveiled women; who will tolerate no other interpretation of Islam but their own and have vilified Sufism and other strands of Islam as apostasy; who have murdered, among others, fellow Muslims by the thousands in the market places of Iraq, Algeria and in the Sudan. Countless Islamic writers, journalists and religious authorities have expressed their disgust at this extremist violence. To speak against such things is hardly ‘astonishing’ on my part (Independent on Sunday) or original, nor is it ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘right wing’ as one official of the Muslim Council of Britain insists, and nor is it to endorse the failures and brutalities of US foreign policy. It is merely to invoke a common humanity which I hope would be shared by all religions as well as all non-believers.”

Ian McEwan website, June 2008

‘A Caledonian caliphate’ – Mad Mel warns against the Islamisation of Scotland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel“Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, has been spectacularly canny and effective as Scotland’s first minister, moving his nationalist pieces across the British constitutional chessboard with stealth and skill.

“But there’s a dimension to this that has so far passed below the radar – the scimitar slung around the kilt.

“Tomorrow, the Scottish Islamic Foundation will be launched in Edinburgh in Salmond’s presence. But as the invaluable Centre for Social Cohesion tells us, the  leading members of this group and many of those who lead its events are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is the Islamisation of Britain and Europe.

“Its chief executive Omar [sic] Saeed, who has worked as Salmond’s researcher and is the SNP’s parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, is an Islamist and leading light in the Brotherhood front the Muslim Association of Britain. Saeed follows the usual Brotherhood line of promoting certain limited moderate positions, such as calling for an end to forced marriages or opposing terrorism in Britain, thus enabling him to pass himself off as a moderate while he slips and slides over issues such as sharia. But he is of course an unequivocal supporter of the Brotherhood leader Yusuf Qaradawi who endorses terrorist mass murder in Israel and Iraq – support which inescapably identifies the holder of such a view as an extremist and terrorist sympathiser….

“The Salmond/Saeed axis is not merely a disturbing sign of Salmond’s own prejudices. It has a potential strategic significance that goes beyond Scotland. The Brotherhood’s strategy for Britain is to promote separate Islamic development, declare sharia-only enclaves and infiltrate mainstream institutions as a springboard for Islamising the entire society. Since Salmond’s aim is to make Scotland independent from the rest of the United Kingdom, with one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border. Scottish voters might be getting more than they bargained for: a Caledonian caliphate.”

Melanie Phillips’s blog, 25 June 2008

“The scimitar slung around the kilt”? “With one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border”? Surely it can’t be long before the men in white coats arrive for Mel.

See also Douglas Murray’s “Alex Salmond cosies up to Muslim Brotherhood” at ConservativeHome.

Western world is losing Christian values, says bishop of Rochester

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nazir AliDr Nazir-Ali was greeted with a standing ovation as he gave a speech to a breakaway summit in Jerusalem of more than 1,000 traditionalists from across the Anglican Communion who oppose gay priests and the blessing of same-sex unions.

He did not say that divisions over sexuality would lead to a schism in Anglicanism, and referred to unity being a “very precious thing”. Instead he called on those in the church to concentrate on mission – trying to convert those of other faiths and with no faith to Christianity.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who earlier this year claimed the decline of Christianity had led to a collapse of Britishness, said: “Let us pray that we are able to recover our Christian nerve in the west and make sure the Gospel is not lost, and that all that is valuable in western culture – much of which comes from its Judeo-Christian background – will survive as a way to enhance cultures in the west and renew them once again.”

He said he could not apologise for wanting to explain Christianity with Muslims and to great laughter he added: “That’s not the only thing I want to do to them.”

Daily Telegraph, 25 June 2008 

Neo-Nazi who threatened ‘racial war’ against Muslims found guilty

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Martyn_GilleardNeo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard has been found guilty of making bombs for a far-right terrorist campaign, after having previously admitted downloading thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

Police initially searched Gilleard’s flat in Goole, East Yorkshire, in connection with child pornography offences. But once inside the 31-year-old’s home, they discovered not just evidence of a paedophile, but the equipment of a potential terrorist as well.

Officers found machetes, swords, bullets, gunpowder and racist literature. Most sinister of all were four home-made nail bombs stashed under his bed.

He wrote of starting a “racial war” and murdering Muslims, but Martyn Gilleard boasted that he was no “barstool nationalist”. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the “time has come to stop the talk and start to act”. And a jury has decided he truly did want to put his white supremacist views into action.

Gilleard, a forklift truck driver from Goole, East Yorkshire, admitted to police and the court that he had held racist views. At the time of his arrest he was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People’s Party – all opposed to multiculturalism.

His computer password was Martyn1488 – the 14, according to prosecutor Andrew Edis QC, being a reference to the far-right’s “14 words” slogan, “We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children.” The 88, Mr Edis added, represented the eighth letter of the alphabet – an abbreviation for “Heil Hitler”.

But Gilleard was not simply a passive crank, the court was told. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the “time has come to stop the talk and start to act”.

“Unless we the British right stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen, we will never get back that which has been stolen from us,” he added. “I am so sick and tired of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear.”

BBC News, 25 June 2008