Monthly Archives: July 2009

Anti-Muslim bias in the media? Not according to Harry’s Place

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harry's Place banner

“There’s a funny little spat going on. So last week Mehdi Hasan from the New Statesman wrote an article highlighting the different way the media treats a Muslim terrorist and a non-Muslim (far-right in this case) terrorist. Pretty obvious I thought. But Brett at Harry’s Place took umbrage on behalf of all people who feel white people are being victimised equally and there’s no bias obviously.

“I mean it’s not like there’s a media panic about Muslims is there? It’s not like there’s been stories of Muslim bus drivers chucking people off the bus so he could pray. Obviously there’s not been any on Muslims drawing up a hit-list of prominent Jews to get them back over Gaza. No one could ever imagine a story of Muslim youths attacking a soldier’s house after Afghanistan.

“You certainly would not believe that these stories would make the front page AND they turned out to be lies. That would never happen because our media is so balanced. Neither would you see prominent right-wing columnists writing about Eurabia and the ‘coming Muslim threat and all that’. Our press is the paragon of equal treatment to all nasty people. In group bias? That would never happen!”

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics, 22 July 2009

Sikh victims of crime can ask for own-faith officers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BBC reports:

Sikh victims of crime in London are to be given the option of asking for a police officer of their own faith to work on their case. This new service from the Metropolitan Police (Met) aims to make use of the officers’ specialist knowledge of Punjabi culture to help with cases like forced marriage and so-called honour crime.

Officers within the Met have told the BBC Asian Network that crimes in the community have gone unsolved and unreported because of a lack of understanding of the culture by officers from a “white” background.

And how does the Daily Express report this story? Under the headline “Muslims could get own police“.

MCB libel win threatens ‘free speech’ claims Martin Bright

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ENGAGE replies to Bright, who writes: “There is a growing recognition that the libel laws are becoming an embarrassment to Britain. With large organisations consistently folding to the merest whiff of a threat from Carter Ruck, free speech (and the scientific principle) is seriously under threat. The latest to pay up is the BBC, which has just settled with the MCB’s ‘Secretary General’ Muhammad Abdul Bari.”

Defend multicultural Britain against the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma Yaqoob Respect“Today, it is anti-Muslim racism that is at the cutting edge of the fascist strategy. It is effective because it feeds on the suspicion and prejudice that is the theme of so much mainstream discussion of our lives as British Muslims.

“Its consequences are real. Already, there are signs that attacks on mosques and individual Muslims may be rising. The police are warning of the danger of far-right terrorism. And, earlier this month, we saw an openly racist provocation in Birmingham city centre, under the guise of a protest against ‘Islamic extremism’ – a label that the organiser made clear applied to all Muslims.

“We, as British Muslims, have a direct and immediate interest in defeating this fascist threat. The anti-fascist movement must reach out to Muslim communities who are at the sharp end of BNP attacks. But the rise in racism is not only a threat to Muslims. The BNP may be playing down their anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism in order to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. But to the BNP we are all ‘racial foreigners’. Our very existence as British people is denied.

“Our task is not only to unite all those targeted by the BNP, with every possible ally who rejects racism and fascism. We have to also positively assert our multicultural and pluralist society. It is a message of hope that is in tune in an increasingly interconnected world. It is a source of strength and vibrancy. We are one society and many cultures. And we will only remain so if we are prepared to stand up and be counted.”

Salma Yaqoob in the Morning Star, 20 July 2009

Soccer hooligans plan another anti-Muslim protest in Birmingham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Luton riotPolice are being urged to ban a “sinister” new soccer group – said to include football hooligans – from staging a Midland protest against Muslim extremists.

Casuals United was set up after British soldiers were abused by Islamic radicals at a homecoming parade in Luton earlier this year. The group allegedly includes trouble-makers from soccer clubs across the country, including Aston Villa, Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Casuals have already staged a number of protests against Muslim extremists around the UK, including on July 4 at Birmingham Bullring when a 100-strong crowd was held back by riot police. Now the group are planning to return to the second city for a fresh rally on August 8 – leading to fears of violence.

Last night, Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood urged police to block the event. He said: “No matter what these groups say, people have to see that they have sinister intentions and only want to promote violence on our streets. This is the kind of thing we saw in the 1970s when the Far Right came to prominence and caused riots in our cities.”

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US court reverses ban on Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan cartoon (1)A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Friday reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed the government to bar a prominent Muslim scholar from entering the United States on the ground that he had contributed to a charity that had connections to terrorism.

The scholar, Tariq Ramadan, 46, a Swiss academic, was to become a tenured professor at the University of Notre Dame, but the Bush administration revoked his visa in 2004 and again denied him a visa in 2006. The government cited evidence that from 1998 to 2002, he donated about $1,300 to a Swiss-based charity that the Treasury Department later categorized as a terrorist organization because it provided money to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group.

Professor Ramadan said in a later court affidavit that he was not aware of any connections between the charity, the Association de Secours Palestinien, and Hamas or terrorism, and that he believed that the organization was involved in legitimate humanitarian projects. “I have condemned terrorism at every opportunity,” he wrote.

In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held unanimously that the government was required to “confront Ramadan with the allegation against him and afford him the subsequent opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he did not know, and reasonably should not have known, that the recipient of his contributions was a terrorist organization.”

The panel sent the case back to the lower court for a determination on whether Professor Ramadan had been confronted with the allegation, and then given a chance to deny it. If that did not happen, the panel said, a new visa hearing should be held.

“I am gratified that the court has found that my exclusion from the United States is without basis,” Professor Ramadan said in a statement on Friday. Professor Ramadan, who had frequently visited the United States in the past, lecturing and attending conferences, said he was eager to “engage once again with Americans in the kinds of face-to-face exchanges” that were “crucial to bridging cultural divides.”

New York Times, 17 July 2009

BNP councillor not to be prosecuted over racist leaflets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam a threat to us allA Pendle councillor from the British National Party has been cleared of all charges after he was arrested for handing out leaflets believed to racially aggravate public order.

Coun. Brian Parker was arrested with three other men on November 19th, for handing out two leaflets. One was written by the BNP entitled “Islam – a threat to us all” and the other by Preston Pals, holding Muslims responsible for the heroin trade in Britain.

After his arrest, bail was postponed four times before it was found on July 6th there was “currently insufficient evidence to prove a realistic prospect of conviction.”

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