Stop playing silly buggers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stop Playing Silly BuggersPeace and justice campaigners told the police to stop playing “silly buggers” on Monday following revelations that the anti-terrorism squad phone-tapped a senior Muslim MP while visiting a constituent in prison.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw told the Commons that a “fact-finding” investigation into the alleged police surveillance of Labour whip Sadiq Khan would report back within two weeks. Critics demanded to know who authorised the alleged bugging of the Tooting MP – an act banned under the so-called Wilson doctrine. Mr Straw replied that this was a matter for the inquiry, but he insisted that “no ministers played any part in these authorisations.”

According to BBC sources, a Thames Valley police officer made the decision to bug private conversations between Mr Khan and Babar Ahmad at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, in 2005 and 2006, using a microphone hidden in a table.

Mr Ahmad, who has never been charged with a crime, is awaiting extradition to the US for trial over allegedly running a website to raise funds for Chechen separatists and Afghanistan’s Taliban.

In a strongly worded statement, Mr Ahmad’s family condemned the alleged affair but they insisted that they were not surprised. “After Babar’s abuse at the hands of the police and the subsequent cover-up by the authorities, it does not surprise us that ‘dirty dealings’ like this were being authorised in the prison,” it said. “It seems as though they were clutching at straws and desperate to find something to pin on him as they have been unsuccessful in doing so.”

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said that it was a “frightening state of affairs that the surveillance of an MP was authorised by one Thames Valley police officer and no elected politicians knew about it.

“It raises questions about the issue of surveillance and the state of our democracy,” she insisted. “I have had many conversations with Mr Ahamad’s family. Does this mean that those meetings were bugged? This kind of police control will make any grass-roots campaign very difficult and threaten democracy.” Ms German added: “The government and the police should stop playing silly buggers and get to the bottom of this.”

Morning Star, 5 February 2008

See also Star Comment: “Risk of a police state“.

Muslims in the Torygraph

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Julaybib Ayoub has examined coverage of Islam and Muslims in the Daily and Sunday Telegraph over the past month. He writes:

“What can be said about these lists? First of all, Muslims are generally represented as a ‘problem’, whether it be regarding the war on terror, extremism, shariah law, schools, dress, education, youth, crime, other religions and culture. In other words, in almost every aspect of media interest, there is a ‘Muslim’ angle. Pretty much the same kind of stories come up again and again in each area – the threat of extremist youth; halal food in schools; the veil; alleged Muslim intolerance and over-sensitivity; and also the ‘injustice’ of Muslims being granted ‘special’ provision, although those kinds of stories (new racism stories) are more often found in the tabloids.

“However, some topics associated with Muslims by the media actually having nothing to do with Islam at all, notably forced marriages and honour killings. Honour refers to a cultural phenomenon found in both Muslim and non-Muslim cultures in South Asia and also in the Arab world. Yet the media not infrequently insinuates an Islamic association, especially when some tenuous relationship can be contrived linking Muslim leaders and such practices.”

Writing Muslim Culture, 4 February 2008

ABC tricked us, say Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Muslim women say their participation in an ABC documentary pitched as a “bridge-building” exercise between Islam and the wider community has left them fearful for their safety.

Raisah bint Alan Douglas and 54-year-old Rabiah Hutchinson, the so-called “matriarch” of radical Islam in Australia, have accused the makers of an ABC documentary, Jihadi Sheilas, of deceitful and unethical conduct, saying they were tricked into participating in what they fear will be a misleading documentary.

Yesterday, the women delivered a formal letter of protest to the ABC’s Sydney headquarters.

The two women told The Australian that they were approached separately by an ABC documentary crew last year and invited to participate.

They said they were explicitly and repeatedly told the material would be used on the ABC’s long-running Australian Story, a show Ms Douglas described as “patriotic (and) sympathetic”. She said she was told the focus of the program would be the women’s conversion to Islam, not their alleged links to extremists.

“They said, ‘We’re going to put you on Australian Story’,” Ms Douglas told The Australian. “‘We’d like to because there’s a lot of negative publicity around Muslims and it seems to be getting worse. We, as a community channel, want to do something about it … It will be a bridge-building exercise between the Muslim community and the Australian general public.”‘

The women – neither of whom has seen the program – are concerned the final product portrays them as traitors.

Ms Hutchinson said she had already been verbally abused after being recognised from a promo for the show. She said in one incident, which occurred at Bankstown shopping centre on Sunday, a man yelled at her to “go back where you came from”.

“They actually mentioned the television program,” she said.

The Australian, 5 February 2008

Inquiry is vital to retain Muslim confidence – MP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Labour MP Sadiq Khan welcomed a government inquiry yesterday into alleg-ations that Scotland Yard had bugged conversations between him and a constituent acccused of terrorist offences. Khan said: “Constituents should have the confidence to speak to their MP in confidence, with candour so they can be helped with their case. My phone has rung off the hook with constituents who are concerned and annoyed.”

The Muslim Council of Britain said it wanted urgent meetings with the government over the “appalling” allegations which could damage confidence in the police: “Today’s revelations are simply appalling and raise a whole range of vital issues to do with confidentiality and how to hold to account the improper behaviour of senior police officers. This kind of behaviour cannot but do immense damage to the level of trust between Muslim communities and the police.”

Guardian, 4 February 2008

See also MCB press release, 3 February 2008

After ‘no-go’ bishop, multiculturalism debated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Bishop of Rochester’s article in The Sunday Telegraph last month has reignited the row over multiculturalism. The doctrine was unquestioned for nearly three decades. But the bombings of July 2005, when home-grown Muslim suicide attackers killed dozens of London commuters, led many to blame multiculturalism for causing deep divisions in Britain.

The attacks shone a light into Britain’s “separate” and “closed” communities, where many ethnic and religious groups led “parallel lives”, cut off from mainstream society and where values were increasingly in conflict with those of the host country. A consensus has emerged that the multiculturalism experiment was necessary, but that its time is over.

Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2008

Sudden Jihad Syndrome comes to Scotland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim fanatics in Scotland could be radicalised within weeks, the country’s terror czar has warned. And John Corrigan stressed that the exact potential of the threat is constantly changing and can never be quantified. He spoke to Scotland on Sunday just six weeks before retiring as Scotland’s counter-terrorism chief, having spent four years in the post overseeing such operations as the arrest of Mohammed Atif Siddique and the inquiry into the would-be car bombing of Glasgow Airport.

Recent research has shown the time it takes for an individual to show an initial interest in fundamentalism to actively taking part in an attack is reducing all the time. Several years ago, experts figured that period may be up to 18 months but now with perceived threats to Muslims being featured virtually daily on our television screens, that timescale is down to just a few weeks.

Scotland on Sunday, 3 February 2008

Corrigan would appear to be inspired by Daniel Pipes’ invention, the “Sudden Jihad Syndrome“.

Police bugged Muslim MP Sadiq Khan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sadiq KhanScotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad secretly bugged a high-profile Labour Muslim MP during private meetings with one of his constituents. Sadiq Khan, now a government whip, was recorded by an electronic listening device hidden in a table during visits to the constituent in prison.

The bugging of MPs is a breach of a government edict that has barred law agencies from eavesdropping on politicians since the bugging scandal of Harold Wilson’s government. There was no suspicion of criminal conduct by Khan to justify the operation.

Khan discussed sensitive personal and legal matters during the recorded meeting. The MP was said to be “outraged” yesterday. “From what you have told me, this is an infringement of a citizen’s right to have a private meeting with his MP,” he said.

Sunday Times, 3 February 2008

Islamist ‘Trojan horse’ in Pentagon, say experts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Federal authorities say a high-level Muslim Pentagon aide, who led a campaign to silence a Pentagon intelligence analyst for taking a hard line against Islam, is running an “influence operation” on behalf of U.S. Muslim groups fronting for the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Hesham H. Islam, a special assistant to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, recently criticized Maj. Stephen Coughlin, one of the military’s leading authorities on Islamic war doctrine, for making the connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism. After Islam lodged complaints, Coughlin’s contract with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon was not renewed.

Islam also was upset with briefings Coughlin recently prepared for the U.S. military warning that major U.S. Muslim groups were fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement based in Egypt.

World Net Daily, 1 February 2008

Islamophobes against Ken

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is not at all surprising that in the campaign now being waged against me are some former leftwingers, such as Bright and Nick Cohen, whose fear of multiculturalism and Islamism has tipped dangerously towards a paranoid Islamophobia that threatens harmonious community relations in this city. This group wants the mayoral election not to be waged on central issues for Londoners – affordable homes, public transport, investment in policing, radical policies to tackle climate change – but on their own obsessions.”

Ken Livingstone in the Guardian, 1 February 2008