Denmark’s veiled soccer star

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zainab al-KhatibODENSE — Zainab al-Khatib commanders the attention of the women national soccer team fans not just with her unmistaken talents, dribbling skills and spectacular goals but also her colorful hijab. “I’m so glad that I set a precedent in Denmark,” 15-year-old Khatib, the star of the national team for girls under 16, told IslamOnline.net.

She was recently chosen to join the team after receiving permission from the Danish Football Association (DBU) to be the first ever hijab-clad girl to play for a national team, not only in Denmark but across Europe.

Khatib, who only started her professional football career two years ago, is now the striker for the national team. She has led her team to an impressive victory in their latest match against Sweden, scoring a wonderful goal.

“Zainab has a strong personality and her attitude is always positive and inspirational in and outside the court,” her coach Troels Mansa told IOL. “She is one of my best players and I am so glad to be her coach.”

Khatib believes all the fuss over hijab is meaningless. “It is always wonderful to be able to strike a balance between your religious duties and your hobbies.”

She says her teammates are very supportive. “They have welcomed me into the team and I faced no obstacles. During our match with Sweden, some players were surprised to see my hijab but nobody commented.”

She wants her contribution to the team to demonstrate the willingness of Danish Muslims to integrate into society. “I see myself as a Danish Muslim who effectively contributes to her society and will be proud to represent my country abroad.”

Islam Online, 25 June 2008

Cummins was right about Islam says Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod LiddleWriting in this week’s Spectator Rod Liddle rallies to the defence of poor Harry Cummins – “the British Council employee who dared to speak the truth about Islamic ideology”, as the standfirst to Liddle’s article puts it.

Apparently Cummins has been bombarding journalists with an email demanding the right of reply to the Guardian, of a character that leads Liddle to describe him as a paid-up member of the “green ink brigade”.

This, you may recall, was the Harry Cummins who contributed a series of articles to the Telegraph back in 2004 bearing titles such as “Muslims are a threat to our way of life“, and who assured his readers that “Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land, and behave with a humility quite unlike the menacing behaviour we have come to expect from the Muslims who have forced themselves on Christendom, a bullying ingratitude that culminates in a terrorist threat to their unconsulted host”.

In response to a critic who accused him of underestimating the diversity of Islam and pointed out that extremists were a minority within the faith, Cummins opined that “all Muslims, like all dogs, share certain characteristics”. Understandably, Cummins denounced the proposal to introduce a law against incitement to religious hatred, which he said had been adopted “at the behest of Muslim foreigners who have forced themselves on us”, and he defended the right to express “a virulent hatred of Muslims”.

Liddle, however, is indignant that Cummins’ employers at the British Council sacked him on the basis that he had made “ignorant” and “hateful” comments about Muslims. According to Liddle, notwithstanding the eccentricity of his emails, Cummins “was certainly not a racist, whatever else he was. He made it clear that his beef was with the ideology, not the people”!

On the other hand we are obliged to Liddle for the revelation that “the more barking mad the letter I receive, the more likely it is that they fervently agree with whatever it is I’ve written”. Well, that would figure, wouldn’t it?

Hizb ut-Tahrir challenges German ban in European court

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbAn internationalist Islamist organisation is submitting an application to the European court tomorrow in an effort to overturn a ban on its activities in Germany. Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, believes that the five-year-old ban is unlawful and argues it should be free to campaign in the country and have all frozen assets released.

Britain has twice considered proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir, most recently after the July 7 2005 bombings, and decided each time that there were not grounds for doing so. Last week Denmark’s senior state prosecutor also advised that the organisation should not be banned, as it has not breached that country’s constitution.

Prohibited in several Middle Eastern and central Asian countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir operates legally in Israel, and is not banned in any EU country other than Germany. Although membership of the party remains legal in Germany, it has been prohibited from public activity since 2003, on charges of spreading antisemitic propaganda following the publication of a leaflet the previous year.

More recently, Germany has accused the party of breaching the “concept of international understanding” enshrined in the country’s constitution, a charge more usually levelled against parties of the far right.

The party denies it is antisemitic and, says it is against violence and that its aim is to unite Muslim countries into a single state ruled by Islamic law.

Guardian, 24 June 2008

Obama snubs US Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.

Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.

“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message’.”

When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations – unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts – have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.

In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.

“This is the ‘hope campaign’, this is the ‘change campaign’,” said Mr. Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota. Muslims are frustrated, he added, that “they have not been fully engaged in it.”

New York Times, 24 June 2008

See also Amy Chozik’s article in the Wall Street Journal, 23 June 2008

Posted in USA

Irish Muslim loses award after refusing to shake hands

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim asylum seeker lost out on an award for volunteer work after indicating that he would not shake hands with the woman who was to present him with the prize.

Alinoor Ahmed Sheikh, a Somali based in an asylum hostel in Tralee, was to have been honoured for his work raising funds for Amnesty International at a ceremony last Thursday organised by the Africa Centre in Dublin. The event was designed to highlight the positive work done by refugees and asylum seekers in Irish communities.

Five minutes before Benedicta Attoh, a member of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, was due to present the award she was told not to call out Sheikh’s name. “The judges had decided that someone else should get the award,” said Attoh, chairwoman of the Africa Centre’s board.

Attoh did not find out the reason why until she read in Metro Eireann on Friday that his name had been removed because of his refusal to shake hands with women. Sheikh told the newspaper that he had been assured his request not to shake a female presenter’s hand would be accommodated because it was based on his religious beliefs.

Attoh said she would havebeen shocked if a prize-winner had refused to shake her hand. “I don’t think I would have presented his prize if he wouldn’t shake my hand because I’m a woman,” she said.

Sunday Times, 22 June 2008

Radical Islam main threat to US economy says McCain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In an interview with Fortune, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked what the single gravest long term threat to the U.S. economy was. This is not an easy question, with so many choices and all. Is it the housing crisis or the credit crisis? What about the huge deficit the country is running, or the rising cost of energy? How about Social Security? McCain didn’t select any of those options; instead, he said that radical Islam was the single biggest threat to the U.S. economy. Pardon me a moment while I let this sink in a bit…nope, still don’t see it…”

InvestorCentricBlog, 23 June 2008

John Rentoul on the Bushra Noah case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Everyone thinks that the tribunal’s decision is absurd, lunatic, political-correctness-gone-mad. Everyone, that is, with the exception of a tiny minority in that strange alliance of political Islamism and revolutionary Marxism, which condemns the popular reaction as Islamophobia…. hairdressers should be free to choose whom to employ, even on strange criteria, and even on criteria that depend on what people look like…. the Liberal Democrats are best placed to lead this great liberal cause: that the law, while protecting people from racism, should have nothing whatsoever to do with the ‘injury to feelings’ sustained by the holding of religious beliefs about clothes and hair. Nick Clegg: over to you.”

Independent on Sunday, 22 June 2008

Nazis attack German Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two young neo-Nazis wielding baseball bats attacked a group of Muslims on their way to a mosque in the eastern German state of Thuringia, police said Sunday. A 23-year-old required medical treatment for injuries to his arm after the attack on Saturday evening in Nordhausen, some 250 kilometres southwest of Berlin. The assailants fled after hurling verbal abuse at their victims from Morocco, Russia and Pakistan, a police spokesman said.

Attacks on foreigners are not uncommon in the eastern part of Germany, where unemployment is high and right-wing groups have an easy time recruiting new members. In a case that made international headlines last year, a mob of Germans chased a group of Indians through the eastern town of Muegeln and tried to kick down the door of the restaurant where they sought sanctuary.

Earth Times, 22 June 2008

Sharia courts – not such a threat after all

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Now Muslims Get Their Own LawsRemember this hysterical report in the Daily Express warning that “Muslim radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain. Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system” and announcing the shocking discovery that “the Sharia court system has been set up in the heart of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire”?

Tory MP Philip Davies was quoted as saying: “I am absolutely appalled and find the prospect of such courts totally terrifying. Places like this should be closed down…. It simply can’t be tolerated.”

Well, here’s an interesting article from the Seattle Times which provides a more balanced view of the role of that very same Shariah council in Dewsbury. It’s about time the media in the UK started practising this sort of informed and reasoned reporting.

‘I despise Islamism’ says Ian McEwan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The award-winning novelist Ian McEwan has launched an outspoken attack on militant Islam, accusing it of “wanting to create a society that I detest”.  The author said he “despises Islamism” because of its views on women and homosexuality. The writer of Atonement and Enduring Love condemned religious hardliners as he defended his friend, the writer Martin Amis, against charges of racism.

Amis was accused last year of being Islamaphobic after he said that “the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order”. In an essay written the day before the fifth anniversary of the bombing of New York’s Twin Towers [it was in fact in an interview with the Times], the novelist suggested “strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan”, preventing Muslims from travelling, and further down the road, deportation.

McEwan, 60, said it was “logically absurd and morally unacceptable” that writers who speak out against militant Islam are immediately branded racist. “As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist,” he said in an interview in Corriere della Sera.

Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, criticised McEwan’s defence of Amis.

“Mr McEwan is being rather disingenuous about his friend, Martin Amis’s remarks. Of course you should be allowed to criticise the tenets of any religion. However, Amis went much further than that,” he said. “He was advocating that the Muslim community be made to suffer ‘until it gets its own house in order’. And what sort of suffering did Amis have in mind? In his own words, ‘Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan … Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.'”

He added: “Those were clearly very bigoted remarks and the fact that McEwan prefers to whitewash them tells us much about his own views too.”

Sunday Telegraph, 22 June 2008

See also “‘I despise Islamism’: Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview”, Independent On Sunday, 22 June 2008

Also Islam Online, 22 June 2008 and Lenin’s Tomb, 22 June 2008