It’s all very well to be sensitive to Islam, but …

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

“There may no longer be much in the way of ideological enthusiasm for what can be described as multiculturalism. But in practice it gathers pace anyway, and there remains an unwillingness to take even a normative stance against it. Tony Blair may have declared that he considered the veil to be ‘a sign of separation’. But there is little sign of any appetite for issuing any formal guidance that might suggest that such dress is not in keeping with the values and aspirations of modern British life.”

Deborah Orr in the Independent, 13 February 2008

Orr’s sentiments are enthusiastically endorsed by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.

Stab woman made ‘terrorist’ claim

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Mary McKay A 32-year-old woman who stabbed an Asian teenager she called a terrorist has been jailed for six years.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Mary McKay admitted attempting to murder Tarik Husan, 17, in Tollcross Road, Glasgow, on 10 September, 2007.

Lord Menzies said: “It seems to me this was a completely unprovoked attack on an unarmed stranger in the public street without any explainable motive.”

McKay will be supervised for two years after her release.

She stabbed Mr Husan in the chest and arm at a bus stop in Glasgow and told him “you’re all terrorists”. McKay, who had taken cocaine, later claimed she had gone to stab her mother, but had missed the bus and stabbed Mr Husan instead.

The court heard that after the attack she walked into a shop still clutching the knife and waited for the police to arrive. “I just stabbed a guy with the same colour of skin as a terrorist,” she later told police.

Mr Husan, 17, had only arrived in Scotland a short time before the attack.

BBC News, 13 February 2008

Sunny backs Bish

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

“I have a rule of thumb: if the Sun newspaper is running a campaign for something, it is generally a bad idea. It’s worked beautifully so far and its latest campaign to ‘Bash the Bishop’ is no exception.” Critical backing from Sunny Hundal for Rowan Williams.

Liberal Conspiracy, 13 February 2008

Mayor in Muslim row quits Tories

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

A town council mayor who claimed Muslims “cause mayhem with explosives” quit the Conservative party last night. Mirfield Mayor Clr Robert Bennett provoked outrage when comments he made about Islam in an email were leaked. Clr Bennett wrote in the email:

“I am aware Islamic organisations are keen to promote a view that they are peaceful, forward-thinking individuals who wish to integrate into the British way of life. The policy of clothing the feminine population of Dewsbury in black sack-like clothing from head to toe, the occasional trip out to cause mayhem with explosives and the proposal that all those of homosexual persuasion should be killed by shooting or other means is adequate and practical testimony to the level of progress being made in this direction.”

With an investigation into the leaked email under way, Clr Bennett told the town council: “I have decided to withdraw from membership of the Conservative party until such time as this matter is resolved.”

Clr Keith Sibbald, of Northorpe ward, spoke in the mayor’s defence. He said: “Those comments were intended to be off the cuff, but they have been taken up and used in an almost barbaric fashion by the Press.” Clr Sibbald went on to accuse Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik and the British National Party of using the controversy “to make political gain out of a private email”. Clr Sibbald then proposed a vote of confidence in Clr Bennett as mayor, which was passed.

Huddersfield Examiner, 13 February 2008

Five students win terror appeal

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

The convictions of five young Muslim men jailed over extremist literature have been quashed by the Appeal Court.

Freeing the men, the Lord Chief Justice said there was no proof of terrorist intent. The lawyer for one said they had been jailed for a “thought crime”.

A jury convicted them in 2007 after hearing the men, of Bradford University and Ilford, London, became obsessed with jihadi websites and literature.

Irfan Raja, Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Malik and Akbar Butt were jailed for between two and three years each by the Old Bailey for downloading and sharing extremist terrorism-related material, in what was one of the first cases of its kind.

But at the Court of Appeal, Lord Phillips said that while the men had downloaded such material, he doubted if there was evidence this was in relation to planning terrorist acts. He said the prosecution had attempted to use the law for a purpose for which it was not intended.

Lawyers for the men say the decision to restrict how the law on extremist literature works has huge implications for counter terrorism prosecutions.

Critics inside the Muslim community and civil liberty campaigners say section 57 of the 2000 Terrorism Act has been used as a blunt instrument to prosecute young Muslim men where there is no proof of genuine links to terrorism.

The BBC understands there have been three other convictions under this legislation – more cases are expected before the courts this year.

Imran Khan, solicitor for Mr Zafar, said the five had been prosecuted for “thought crime” and that the ruling would have an significant impact.

He told BBC News: “Young Muslim men before this judgement could have been prosecuted simply for simply looking at any material on the basis that it might be connected in some way to terrorist purposes.”

He said section 57 of the 2000 Terrorism Act had been written in such wide terms that “effectively, anybody could have been caught in it” but prosecutors would now have to prove such material was intended for terrorist purposes.

BBC News, 13 February 2008

Danish papers reprint Muhammad cartoon

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Lars Refn COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s leading newspapers Wednesday reprinted a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that triggered rioting in Muslim countries two years ago. The newspapers said they republished the cartoon to show their firm commitment to freedom of speech after the arrest Tuesday of three people accused of plotting to kill the man who drew the cartoon depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

The Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, reprinted Westergaard’s cartoon in its paper edition Wednesday. Several other major dailies, including Politiken and Berlingske Tidende, also reprinted the drawing.”We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend,” said the Copenhagen-based Berlingske Tidende. Tabloid Ekstra Bladet reprinted all 12 drawings. At least three European newspapers – in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain – also reprinted the cartoon as part of their coverage of the Danish arrests.

Intelligence police arrested two Tunisians and a Danish citizen of Moroccan origin in western Denmark on Tuesday for allegedly plotting to kill Westergaard. The Danish suspect was released Tuesday after questioning, his lawyer Henning Lyngsbo said.”He has no knowledge about the case,” Lyngsbo told The Associated Press. “It doesn’t seem that the evidence is very strong.”

Associated Press, 13 February 2008

Waltham Forest Muslims welcome Williams’ lecture

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Members of mosques across the borough have condemned the way people reacted to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on Sharia law. The Waltham Forest Council of Mosques said its members welcomed the Archbishop’s thoughtful lecture and wanted to thank him for stimulating a debate that would be beneficial for long-term community cohesion. And they said the fall-out from some quarters was a “hysterical, knee-jerk reaction”.

The council, representing eight local mosques, said Muslims in the borough wanted to live in harmony with the wider community and did not seek to impose their beliefs on anyone else. But they want to have the option to apply Sharia judgements in issues like marriage, divorce, inheritance and financial agreements and abide by the tenets of their faith.

A Sharia court in Francis Road, Leyton, has been doing just that for Muslims across London and the south east since the 1980s. An advisor at the council, Usama Hasan, who is also a Leyton Imam, said the Islamic Sharia Council gets between 50 and 100 new enquiries a week, mainly from British-born Muslims wanting advice about divorce.

He added that the council exists primarily to help Muslim women trapped in marriage. Although they can apply to divorce legally under English law, under Islam they cannot remarry unless the man agrees to a divorce under Sharia, or a Sharia court rules them divorced. Dr Hasan highlighted that a similar condition in Jewish law has already been incorporated into English law and that far from increasing repression as some critics have claimed, they were doing the opposite.

Waltham Forest Guardian, 13 February 2008

Feds charge 3 with firebombing mosque

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center of Columbia NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Three men have been charged in the firebombing of a small mosque over the weekend, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Authorities said Eric Ian Baker, 32, Michael Corey Golden, 23, and Jonathan Edward Stone, 19, had planned for a week to burn down the Islamic Center of Columbia, about 40 miles southwest of Nashville, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul O’Brian said.

The men are accused of using gasoline, rags and empty beer bottles to set fire to the storefront mosque on Saturday. The men, who were arrested later that day, are facing federal charges of unlawful possession of a destructive device and state charges of arson.

The federal complaint filed against the men says Stone and Baker told officers they were members of the Christian Identity movement, an extreme doctrine that claims white Europeans are God’s chosen people. The complaint also said Baker spray-painted swastikas on the walls of the building, including the phrase “White Power.”

Associated Press, 13 February 2008

Christian Right’s emerging deadly worldview

Posted on February 12, 2008 by Bob Pitt

Shoebat book “Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges – a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy – to spew racist filth about Islam…. These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears….

“The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part of the triumphalism that has distorted the country since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those outside our ‘Christian’ culture impossible. It implicitly condemns all who do not think as we think and believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason. It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.”

Chris Hedges at AlterNet, 12 February 2008

For protests over the Air Force Academy meeting, see Military.com, 8 February 2008