Australia: far right targets Tablighi Jamaat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Darrin Hodges“As the people of Camden rally to defend their rural paradise from the armies of Muslim school teachers and students amassing at their gates, they will undoubtedly be reassured that the cavalry has arrived.

“Darrin Hodges, head of the so-called Anglo-Australian National Community Council, has selflessly taken time out from his apparent involvement with the sex industry and posting on the neo-Nazi Stormfront website, to man the barricades of Western civilisation. Darrin, you see, is ‘dedicated to fighting the spread of Islam in Australia’.

“Sure, he might have trouble pronouncing the word ‘Tablighi’ (he calls it Tabliqi) and his claim that the Tablighi Jamaat are a ‘conveyor belt for terrorism’ funded by Saudis and promoting a Pakistani version of the ‘hardline Wahabiism founded in Saudi Arabia’ may be completely wrong but there is no doubting his steely resolve. There may be other errors too but now isn’t the time for facts because, as Darrin warns the people of Camden, Muslims are cunningly working to transform the town into an Islamic state by buying real estate and opening businesses.”

Austrolabe, 18 November 2007

‘The abuse of Muslim women shames us all’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yet another anti-Muslim piece in today’s Observer from Jasper Gerard who tells us that “it’s not racist to defend Asian women who need help”, although it’s unclear how his insistence on criticising the Muslim community (or “Islamic sorts” to employ Gerard’s preferred term) provides any help at all to Asian women. On the contrary, it merely legitimises the prevailing culture of anti-Muslim bigotry, of which hijab-wearing Muslim women in particular are the frequent victims.

But what can you expect from a writer whose response to the Eagleton-Amis controversy was to opine that “it’s a blessed relief that Amis and co have latched on to Islam” and assert that “Eagleton, not Amis, is the problem”? As for racism, perhaps Gerard might ask himself how he would characterise a non-Jewish journalist who demonstrated a similar obsession with criticising the Jewish community.

Gerard observes that “a study claims to show an analysis of British media reports on Islam demonise Muslims. I’m sure this article will also be chalked up as another ‘attack’.” Only too happy to oblige, Jasper.

Am I the demoniser… or is it Ken’s ‘experts’? asks John Ware

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John Ware 2Poor sensitive John Ware complains that he’s been “demonised” – by the Muslim Council of Britain and by the recent report on Islamophobia commissioned by the Mayor of London, which included a detailed analysis of Ware’s 2005 Panorama documentary on the MCB. “Who were the three ‘experts on Islam’ who helped to produce the report?” Ware writes. “Surprise, surprise: they all turn out to be from the MCB.”

Sunday Telegraph, 18 November 2007

The nine experts who helped to compile the publication The Search for Common Ground: Muslims, Non-Muslims and the UK Media in fact included Robin Richardson, editor of the famous 1997 Runnymede Trust report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All and Chris Allen, co-author of Islamophobia in the European Union after 11 September 2001, published by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia – both of whom, most of us might think, qualify as “experts on Islam” – along with people with a specialist knowledge of the media, such as Julian Petley, Hugh Muir and Laura Smith.

John Ware’s capacity for manipulating the evidence to suit his polemical purposes, which was such a notable feature of his Panorama documentary atttacking the MCB, has evidently not deserted him.

LA police chief scraps Muslim mapping

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said Thursday a plan to map out where Muslims lived had been scrapped, saying strong reaction from Muslim communities forced the department to change course. “The proposal will not be moving forward,” Bratton said, standing with several Muslim leaders after a closed-door meeting. “It’s dead on arrival.”

Muslim groups praised the move, but said reversing the damage would take a long time. “We hope to receive a written statement from the chief on the demise of the plan, and a recognition of the pain it caused in our communities,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. “We’ll also wait to get new ideas of engagement from the chief.”

Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing announced last week that the department’s counterterrorism bureau planned to identify Muslim enclaves to determine which might be likely to become isolated and susceptible to “violent, ideologically based extremism.”

The plan was immediately and roundly criticized by Muslim and civil rights groups who said it amounted to religious profiling. Many argued it would achieve the opposite of its intent, making Muslims hesitant to work with authorities. “My first mistake was not reaching out to more groups” before announcing the plan, Downing said.

Associated Press, 16 November 2007

Stand by for a denunciation of the LAPD at Dhimmi Watch.

MPs ready to fight Brown’s terror laws

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MPs ready to fightMPs ready to fight Brown’s terror laws

By Tom Mellen

Morning Star, 16 November 2007

DETERMINED MPs from across the political spectrum prepared to fight Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s plans to extend detention without trial to 58 days on yesterday.

Mr Brown has declared that he believes that a cross-party consensus can be found on the issue. But the Tories, Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs are opposed to any extension of internment beyond the 28-day compromise that was agreed after former premier Tony Blair was defeated in the Commons in 2005 over proposals for a 90-day limit.

Back then, 49 Labour rebels voted against the government. Mr Brown enjoys a working majority of 69 seats in the Commons. If he can win the backing of some Northern Irish parties, over 40 Labour MPs would have to rebel to save traditional British liberties.

Socialist Campaign Group chairman John McDonnell MP reported that “the opposition within Labour ranks to these ‘fortress Britain’ proposals remains the same as in 2005. It has certainly not decreased.”

Under the government’s latest proposals, detention without charge beyond 28 days could only be triggered in “exceptional circumstances” agreed in advance by Parliament. This would include cases where there are “multiple plots or links with multiple countries or exceptional levels of complexity.” It would also require the Home Secretary’s agreement and the extension of the powers would be time-limited. There have already been assurances about greater judicial approval and parliamentary scrutiny.

But Mr McDonnell described the new plans as, “in effect, no different from the old ones. “Mr Brown’s claim to be concerned about our civil rights has been undermined in practice by his attacks on basic human rights. He now has a significant battle on his hands,” Mr McDonnell warned.

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Veil bill ‘misses target’ say Canadian Liberals

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OTTAWA – Liberals have lost their enthusiasm for forcing veiled Muslim women to show their faces if they want to vote in federal elections. Some Grit MPs now admit the party was wrong to jump on the bandwagon two months ago, joining the three other federal parties in demanding that Elections Canada insist all voters uncover their faces.

At the time, the parties were contesting three crucial by-elections in Quebec, where the issue of veiled voters was part of a heated debate over how far the province should go in accommodating immigrants.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion was among those who initially urged Elections Canada to revisit its decision not to compel by-election voters to show their faces. But now that the Tory government has introduced legislation to require precisely that, Mr. Dion is hinting that Liberals won’t support it.

Moncton MP Brian Murphy, who led off debate for the Liberals on the bill, suggested the issue of veiled voters is a tempest in a teapot. He said the legislation is unnecessary, that it targets Muslim women, and possibly violates equality guarantees in the Charter of Rights.

Canadian Press, 16 November 2007

Losing the fight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anas Altikriti“In recent years, anti-terror legislation, coupled with a multi-fold increase in stop-and-search rates, hundreds of false raids and detentions, control orders that are based on flimsy evidence and inconsistent judicial sentences have created a sense of suspicion, fear, intimidation, distrust and possibly even hatred throughout society. And not only within the Muslim community for whom these measures seem to have been designed, but throughout society as a whole….

“How would a person feel if they saw their street cordoned off at dawn by the anti-terror squad who then move to blast into their neighbour’s house and drag one or two people out handcuffed and blindfolded? … How should we view Atif Siddique, charged with possessing material (downloadable from the internet) being handed an eight-year prison sentence when Robert Cottage, formerly of the BNP and found with what was described as the largest haul of chemical explosives, a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit, was jailed for quarter of that term?

“What of Samina Malik, or the ‘lyrical terrorist’, who wrote silly and childish poems glorifying terrorism on the back of WH Smith receipts and who now expects to be handed a prison sentence following a media frenzy, and is seen and described in the same light as the DVLA bomber, Miles Cooper?

“The UK already has the longest pre-charge detention period in the western world and, by all accounts, it doesn’t seem to be working. What is required is a new and creative line of thinking as to what mistakes have been committed and how new approaches can be adopted so that the fight for our collective security, safety and prosperity, can become a common ambition of everyone who lives in this country. That would be a way of life worth fighting for.”

Anas Altikiriti at Comment is Free, 16 November 2007

Muslim alienation caused by multiculturalism, claims Boris

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… here is how John Reid could prove that he was really tough. Here is the bravest thing he could possibly say. He should say that the real problem in our society, and the reason we have so many disaffected and alienated Muslim youths, is that for a generation he and people like him supported the disastrous multicultural agenda. The reason that 40 per cent of British Muslims would like some form of Sharia law in this country is that the Left has traditionally deprecated British institutions and even the teaching of English. A truly brave John Reid would now publicly grovel to Ray Honeyford, the Bradford head who called for teaching in English and who was vilified and persecuted by the Left.”

Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph, 16 November 2006

In a notorious article published in the Salisbury Review in 1984 Honeyford claimed to expose “the real educational consequences of the general acceptance of the notion that multi-racial inner cities are not only inevitable but, in some sense, desirable”. Reporting on a meeting with Bradford Asian parents at his school, he wrote: “The hysterical political temperament of the Indian sub-continent became evident – an extraordinary sight in an English School Hall.” He denounced as “totalitarian” the proposals that “Schoolbooks with a racist content should be scrapped. Racist teachers should be dismissed.” And this is the man Boris Johnson acclaims as a hero!

‘Comparisons with the 1930s’ – MCB replies to Torygraph

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following the Secretary General’s interview with the Daily Telegraph on 10 November, the Muslim Council of Britain releases the following transcript for the discussion relating to comparisions with the 1930s.

Dr Bari: “Muslims are in the centre of discussion that is accepted by everyone. There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us. The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community; it is not good for the society. I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism. Muslim young people are as vulnerable as any others. Under this climate of fear they will begin to feel victimised. Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn’t lead us to a time when people’s mind can be poisoned as they were in 1930’s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything good for the society.”

The account as published only included selections,which is understandable given the limitations of space on the printed page. However what is inexcusable is an editorial insertion which has upset many and led to the MCB receiving abusive calls and hate mail. The Daily Telegraph insertion was a statement never made by Dr Bari: “Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany”.

MCB news release, 15 November 2007