“Will it take an act of terrorist barbarity before this Government bans the wearing of the burka in public?” the fascists demand. Of course the BNP are unable to distinguish between the burka and the niqab. But then, they’ve never exactly been noted for their intelligence.
BNP news article, 22 March 2008
The French government dismissed a top regional education official Wednesday for vigorously opposing a new Muslim school and publicly complaining about pressure from Paris to stop obstructing its opening.
The Al-Kindi high school, in a suburb of Lyon in eastern France, finally admitted its first 22 pupils on March 5 after an eight-month struggle with Alain Morvan, the head of the school board. The struggle ended only when Paris intervened to permit the school to open.
A government spokesman, Jean-François Copé, said Morvan was replaced because “his behavior was not that of a senior official, whose task is to carry out government policy.”
Morvan’s stubborn campaign had become a sore point for French Muslims, and they accused him of Islamophobia for refusing them the right to begin a religious school although about one-fifth of all high schools in France are private, mostly Catholic.
In rejecting three requests to open the school, Morvan accused its founders of being “fundamentalists” and said he would sign refusals to open it “down to the last drop of ink.”
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has been widely criticised for donning a white headscarf to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Well-known for her stand on women’s rights, she has provoked headlines such as “Just like a submissive woman”.
Socialist MP Maria Roth-Bernasconi said it was irritating that she had angered feminists in Iran. Ms Calmy-Rey said she was observing protocol. “When you are a guest you respect local customs,” she said.
Social Democrat MP Liliane Maury Pasquier accepted that customs had to be observed. But she was quoted by one newspaper complaining that the minister should have shown solidarity with “the women who fight against wearing the headscarf”.
Swiss daily Le Matin said on Wednesday it was shocked that Switzerland’s “icon of a liberated woman” had been transformed into an image of one who was oppressed.
The East London Mosque replies to the Sun article “Mosque fiend: Muslim who raped girl claimed he was preaching“. Read pdf here.
“It is just a few days until Easter, the most important date in the Christian calendar. But for 700 Muslims who have gathered in a rural caravan park, this week has a different religious significance. And to some of their neighbours, the thrice-daily calls to prayer are proving a strain on a harmonious relationship. The Iranian Muslims have converged on the Trevelgue Holiday Park in Porth, Cornwall, to celebrate yesterday’s Persian New Year.”
The original headline was “700-strong party of Muslims provoke fury after broadcasting call to prayer”.
CHICAGO — An Illinois high school senior is threatening to file a discrimination lawsuit against his school district after he says a teacher told him he fit the stereotype of a terrorist and humiliated him in front of his peers.
Maysam Amanishourbariki, 17, who was born in the United States and is of Iranian heritage, claims his Italian language teacher told him last semester that he fit the stereotype of a terrorist during an exchange in class over his clothing.
“Right after she said it, one of the students – a freshman – got up and gave her a high five,” Amani told the Waukegan News-Sun. “I was like, ‘Is this kid serious?’ They treated it like a joke, but it’s not a joke.”
Controversial plans for a Muslim community centre in Solihull have been withdrawn amid calls for greater acceptance towards minority groups.
Solihull Muslim Community Association (SMCA) applied for planning permission to establish the centre, complete with prayer hall, in Dog Kennel Lane, Shirley, with 50 parking spaces. Now the group – which has been searching for a home in the borough for 25 years – has announced that it has withdrawn the plans for “technical reasons”.
Fears were rife that racial tension could erupt in Solihull following a leaflet campaign by the BNP against plans for the centre which also included a wudu for washing before prayer. The leaflet, posted to homes near the proposed site, claimed there was an “Islamification” of Solihull and said the centre would lead to “conflict” and “discontent”.
A mother-of-three, who lives near the proposed centre and had objected to it, said she had mixed feelings about news of the application being withdrawn.
“I objected to the centre because of where it was on a busy road and I was concerned about overspill parking and I know other people objected on the same grounds,” said the woman, who did not wish to be named. “However, on the other hand I’m disappointed it’s been withdrawn and just hope it isn’t because of people with narrow minded views like the BNP. I felt sickened when their leaflet came through my door. I would hate the BNP to think it had won.”
Birmingham Mail, 18 March 2008
Meanwhile the fascists are crowing that “Solihull BNP has won a famous victory on behalf of local people”.
A report published today (19 March) found that nearly half of minority ethnic residents, including Muslims, said they had experienced race discrimination and 30 per cent of recent Muslim migrants had experienced religious discrimination. This was cited as a key barrier to a sense of belonging in Britain.
The report – Immigration, faith and cohesion – published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, was written by a team at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at Oxford University. It looked at what factors contribute to, or undermine, community cohesion in three urban areas in England with large migrant and Muslim populations.
Most migrants felt there was no conflict in having a sense of belonging to both Britain and their country of origin. Sixty per cent of long-term Muslim residents born outside the UK said the people most important to them were in Britain.
Co-author Hiranthi Jayaweera from COMPAS said: “Evidence suggests that it is discrimination and the perception of being unwelcome, rather than attachment to their country of origin, that reduces migrants’ sense of belonging in Britain.”
Joseph Rowntree Foundation press release, 19 March 2008
See also Daily Mail, 19 March 2008
Following a complaint by the British Muslim Initiative to the Press Complaints Commission regarding media coverage of the disgraced Policy Exchange’s unfounded report on alleged extremist literature in mosques, the Sun newspaper has withdrawn its coverage of the report from its website and published a clarification letter by BMI.
A right-wing American weekly newspaper will distribute free copies of a book that insults Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and associates Islam with terrorism, Washington-based news agency America in Arabic reported.
The neo-conservative, Republican-oriented Human Events newspaper will distribute Robert Spencer’s The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (2006), America in Arabic said. The book – regularly priced at 30 dollars – is released by Regnery, which has published a string of controversial neo-con books and is a division of Eagle Publishing, which owns Human Events.
Well-known British writer Karen Armstrong, author of Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Time, has said that the book is “written in hatred,” contains “basic and bad mistakes of fact” and that the author “deliberately manipulates the evidence”.