Monthly Archives: July 2009

East Lancashire BNP activists won’t be charged over anti-Muslim leaflets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP heroin leaflet

Three British National Party activists arrested last year in connection with campaign leaflets have been released from police bail.

The three, a 41-year-old man from Nelson, a 44 year-old man from Darwen, and a 57-year-old man from Nelson were all arrested in November on suspicion of the publication and distribution of written material intended to stir up racial hatred and the possession of racially inflammatory material.

The swoops were in connection with leaflets which claimed Muslims were responsible for the heroin trade.

Lancashire police have now told the three they will not face any charges.

A 53-year-old man from Preston arrested on suspicion of the same offences has been re-bailed until later this month.

Burnley Citizen, 7 July 2009

France begins hearings on banning the veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French lawmakers opened hearings Wednesday on whether to ban the burka, calling in experts who said France should act to discourage Muslim women from wearing the head-to-toe veil.

Islam expert Abdennour Bidar called the full veil a “pathology of Islam” embraced by hardline Salafists who tell Muslim women to cover themselves as a way to “get back to their roots”. “It’s up to the republic to help Islam in our country choose its destiny and help French Muslims resist this pressure,” said Bidar. “We must find ways to prevent the burka from spreading.”

Anthropologist Dounia Bouzar said young women had in recent years taken to wearing the full veil after being indoctrinated by “gurus” who pervert Islam’s teachings. She suggested that measures be adopted under France’s security laws barring citizens from concealing their identities by covering their faces, be it with a niqab, a ski mask or even a paper bag. Such a measure would apply equally to all citizens and ensure that France’s five million Muslims do not feel stigmatized for their religion, she argued.

As the hearings got under way, the leader of the governing right-wing majority in parliament came out in favour of a law banning the burka but said it should be preceded by a period of “dialogue” of six months to a year. “We must prohibit what should be prohibited but only after having explained why,” said Jean-Francois Cope, a leading figure in Sarkozy’s UMP party, in an interview to Le Parisien newspaper.

AFP, 8 July 2009

See also Bloomberg, 8 July 2009

The headscarf martyr: murder in German court sparks Egyptian fury

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marwa al-Sherbini funeral2It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times. Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

While the horrific incident that took place a week ago tomorrow has attracted little publicity in Europe, and in Germany has focused more on issues of court security than the racist motivation behind the attack, 2,000 miles away in her native Egypt, the 32-year-old pharmacist has been named the “headscarf martyr”.

She has become a national symbol of persecution for a growing number of demonstrators, who have taken to the streets in protest at the perceived growth in Islamophobia in the west. Sherbini’s funeral took place in her native Alexandria on Monday in the presence of thousands of mourners and leading government figures. There are plans to name a street after her.

Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November of insulting and abusing Sherbini, screaming “terrorist” and “Islamist whore” at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined €780 but had appealed the verdict, which is why he and Sherbini appeared face to face in court again.

Even though he had made his anti-Muslim sentiments clear, there was no heightened security and questions remain as to why he was allowed to bring a knife into the courtroom.

Angry mourners at the funeral in Alexandria accused Germany of racism, shouting slogans such as “Germans are the enemies of God” and Egypt’s head mufti Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy called on the German judiciary to severely punish Alex W.

In Germany the government of Angela Merkel has been sharply criticised for its sluggish response to the country’s first murderous anti-Islamic attack. The general secretaries of both the Central Council of Jews and the Central Council of Muslims, Stephen Kramer and Aiman Mazyek, who on Monday made a joint visit to the bedside of Sherbini’s husband, spoke of the “inexplicably sparse” reactions from both media and politicians.

They said that although there was no question that the attack was racially motivated, the debate in Germany had concentrated more on the issue of the lack of courtroom security. “I think the facts speak for themselves,” Kramer said.

Guardian, 8 July 2009

US Anglicans warned against dialogue with Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ACNADelegates to the 2009 ACNA convocation in Bedford, Texas, last week were warned not to be lulled into complacency by the siren song dialogue with “moderate Islam.” Canon Julian Dobbs, the canon missioner for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) told the June 22-25 meeting that “so-called moderate Islam” was a myth.

The American variety of “moderate Islam” was “no more moderate than the militant Islam of Saudi Arabia or Indonesia,” Canon Dobbs said. Quoting the founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), he explained that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. Don’t be misled or misguided, the peace Islam offers is not the peace of sitting around the camp fire singing. Islam’s peace is the implementation of Sharia Law and the global submission to Islamic ideology,” he argued.

Canon Dobbs stated that in the West, a “resurgent Islam” sought to “infiltrate the Church and win the loyalty and trust of large numbers of churchgoers.” Claiming the full backing of Archbishop Duncan of the ACNA, Canon Dobbs urged the delegates not to let “polite multi-faith conversations” become a substitute for the “proclamation of the historic Christian message.” The opportunities for the evangelization of Muslims had never been greater he said.

Religious Intelligence, 6 July 2009

Via Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

FBI investigating death of Muslim leader

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yermo Nazi graffiti1The FBI is investigating the death of a Muslim leader whose body was found inside a burned home in Yermo that had recently been spraypainted with racial epithets and Nazi symbols. Authorities have deemed the June 27 fire suspicious, but said it could take weeks before they are able to determine how the blaze started.

Neighbors who reported the fire told 911 dispatchers they heard a loud boom – almost like an exploding propane tank – just before the fire erupted. When firefighters doused the flames 40 minutes later, they found the body of 51-year-old Imam Ali Mohammed inside the East Yermo Road house he had moved his family out of last month.

Mohammed recently left Yermo for Victorville because he was being harassed, said CAIR spokeswoman Munira Syeda. Coupled with the anti-Muslim graffiti and the fact that Mohammed’s Yermo mosque was torched by arsonists two years ago, CAIR attorney Ameena Qazi asked the FBI to investigate “the possibility of a bias motive in his death.”

San Bernardino Sun, 7 July 2009

‘Islam is of the Devil’ – sign outside US church

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam is of the Devil signThose behind a sign posted in front of their northwest Gainesville church, proclaiming in red letters “Islam is of the devil,” say it’s a way to express their religious beliefs and is a message of “a great act of love.”

Some living near the Dove World Outreach Center, however, are outraged and disappointed with the sign’s message, which has sparked protests and acts of vandalism at the church since it was posted over the weekend.

“It’s an act of saying there is only one way, and that is actually what Christianity is about. It is about pointing the people in the right direction, and that right direction is Jesus and only Jesus,” said the church’s senior pastor, Terry Jones. “We feel the sign is an act of giving the people a chance.”

Jones acknowledged not everyone has welcomed the sign. Jones said the acts of vandalism will be reported to police and that there are no plans to remove the sign or change what it says.

“We actually posted the sign because there is a tremendous growth in Islam at this time. It is a violent and oppressive religion and does not have anything to do with the truth of the Bible,” Jones said. “We are definitely trying to send the message that Jesus Christ is the only way.”

Gainesville Sun, 8 July 2009

Watch video report here

Update:  See “Crowd gathers in protest in front of church”, Gainesville Sun, 8 July 2009

Christopher Caldwell dissected

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe“Caldwell’s essential argument is that Enoch Powell’s predictions have been proven to be mostly correct and that European elites naively – and unnecessarily – entered into a new era of mass immigration after World War II, without thinking through its long-term consequences. As a result they have paved the way for the implantation of a Muslim ‘adversary culture’ in the heart of Europe that now threatens to engulf the continent demographically, culturally, politically and even sexually….

“All the essential elements of Islamic threat narratives are here; the empty church pews versus burgeoning mosques; Europe’s decadence and crisis of spiritual values versus the confidence and power of Islam; the dire warnings of an ageing Europe that is being out-bred by more virile and fertile Muslim immigrants; the failure of multiculturalism and the subsequent proliferation of parallel societies and ‘ethnic colonies’ characterised by female circumcision, honour killings, criminal violence and terrorism, gang rape and the oppression of women.

“… the uncritical reception given to this artful anti-Muslim diatribe in liberal circles is a depressing reminder of the extent to which its essential assumptions have moved from the political margins to form a new mainstream consensus.”

Matt Carr analyses Christopher Caldwell’s book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

IRR website, 2 July 2009

Head of Islamic community group in Loughton subject to arson attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The head of a recently formed Islamic community group has received a threatening letter and had his house targeted by arsonists in an apparently racist campaign against him.

Noor Ramjanally, of Valley Hill, Loughton, said his family had been very shaken by the incidents which started after he hired the Murray Hall, in Borders Lane, for Islamic prayer sessions.

He told the Guardian: “Every Friday we have our prayers and meetings, then we disperse. This Wednesday I received a threatening letter saying: ‘We don’t want you to carry on at this. We know which school your kid goes to and which car you drive.’

“On Thursday they set fire to the front door of my home. They used an accelerant. It’s with the police and they are doing all the checks.

“I’m ok, but my wife and kid are very disturbed. I’ve had to take my kid out of his school. It’s definitely targeted. They don’t want the Islamic community centre in Loughton, I don’t know why.”

Essex Police have confirmed they are investigating both incidents as racially motivated.

Epping Forest Guardian, 3 July 2009

Police fear far-right terror attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command fears that right-wing extremists will stage a deadly terrorist attack in Britain to try to stoke racial tensions, the Guardian has learned. Senior officers say it will be a “spectacular” that is designed to kill. The counter-terrorism unit has redeployed officers to increase its monitoring of the extreme right’s potential to stage attacks.

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.

“There is an increased possibility of violence from the far right. There is a trend,” said one senior source, adding that the ideology of the violent right was driven by “people who don’t like immigration, people who don’t like Islam. We’re seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism as well.”

The meeting at which Sawyer spoke was staged by the Muslim Safety Forum, whose chair, Abdurahman Jafar, said: “Muslims are the first line of victims in the extreme right’s campaign of hate and division and they make no secret about that. Statistics show a strong correlation between the rise of racist and Islamophobic hate crime and the ascendancy of the BNP.”

Guardian, 7 July 2009