“It is bizarre how the left has espoused the extreme Islamist cause: as ‘my enemy’s enemy’, Muslims are the best America-haters around. The hard left relishes terrorism: a fondness for explosions and the smell of martyrs’ blood excites their revolutionary zeal, without sharing a jot of religious belief.”
Polly Toynbee in the Guardian, 18 August 2004
As police continue to detain a dozen young men arrested in anti-terrorism raids across the UK, Britain’s Muslim community has reacted with dismay.
Detaining the men, all of Asian origin, has prompted complaints in some Muslim circles that they are being unfairly singled out.
Fewer than one in five of the more than 500 people – most of them Muslim – arrested under terrorism laws since September 11, 2001 have been charged with a terrorist offence, according to government figures.
“The Islamophobia embraced by the BNP as a surrogate for its formally disavowed racism is by no means confined to the wasted landscapes of former working-class communities. It is deeply rooted and widespread, as was revealed by the success of Ukip (just listen to Robert Kilroy-Silk assert that “Muslims everywhere behave with equal savagery”).
“Indeed, Islamophobia is the only form of prejudice to which the middle class can readily admit: a religion which is perceived as advocating repression of women and hatred of gays renders acceptable forms of prejudice that would be unthinkable if directed against any other social group.”
Jeremy Seabrook writing in the Guardian, 23 July 2004
“The Conservative Party should stop playing the Muslim Block Vote’s game of divide and conquer. As the by-elections show, the party will only ever gain a small number of Muslim supporters. Breaking with the Umma would be a radical move that millions of voters would respond to. Do the Tories not sense the enormous popular groundswell against Islam?
“Charges of ‘racism’ would inevitably be made against the party but they would never stick. It is the black heart of Islam, not its black face, to which millions object.”
Opinon article by ‘Will Cummins’ in the Sunday Telegraph, 18 July 2004
“Since September 11 2001, Islamophobia – fear and hatred of Muslims – has been on the rampage across the Western world. In the UK, racist tabloid newspapers daily churn out frenzied reports of Muslim clerics declaring jihad against the West. The scaremongering of newspapers like the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express has succeeded in inciting widescale violence and abuse directed against the entire Muslim population.”
Eddie Truman in Scottish Socialist Voice.
British National Party activists have confessed to racially motivated crimes including an assault on an Asian in a BBC undercover documentary. BNP member Steve Barkham told reporter Jason Gwynne how he kicked and punched a man during the 2001 Bradford riots. The Secret Agent also shows the party’s leader Nick Griffin condemning Islam as a “vicious wicked faith”.
“The Islamic world was intellectually and economically wrecked by its decision to put religion beyond the reach of invective, which is simply an extreme form of debate. By so doing, it put science and art beyond the reach of experiment, too. Now, at the behest of Muslim foreigners who have forced themselves on us, New Labour wants to import the same catastrophe into our own society.”
Opinion article by ‘Will Cummins’ in the Sunday Telegraph, 11 July 2004
A government drive against religious extremism was mired in controversy last night over the presence in Britain of a fundamentalist Muslim cleric who allegedly supports suicide bombings and beating women.
On the day that David Blunkett proposed tougher laws against Islamists – and far-Right evangelical Christians – who preached hatred of other religions, the Home Office said it was not right to keep Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam, out of the country on the grounds of his views alone.
However, Tory and Labour MPs said Mr Blunkett should reconsider his position and exclude the cleric.
The row overshadowed a wide-ranging speech on race and integration by the Home Secretary, in which he said extremist religious leaders undermined efforts to establish better community relations in Britain.
Welcome to get-tough Britain, Your Evilness!
By Macer Hall, Political Editor
Daily Star, 8 July 2004
JUST AS David Blunkett was pledging a crackdown on religious hatred yesterday a fanatical Muslim cleric was welcomed into Britain.
The Home Secretary promised a new law to jail extremists who incite hate and violence against other faiths. The new offence is likely to be closely modelled on the existing crime of inciting racial hatred, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment. But his crackdown was branded a “nonsense” as rabble-rouser Yusuf al-Qaradawi waltzed into Britain.
The Qatar-based sheik – who supports attacks on Jews and backs suicide bombers – is banned from the US but allowed to speak at Muslim conferences here. Al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt, like hook-handed fanatic Abu Hamza, the Finsbury Park preacher the Home Office has been trying to kick out of the country.
You’re crazy, Ken
By Trevor Kavanagh, Political Editor
The Sun, 8 July 2004
* KEN: Prosecute The Sun for saying this cleric spouts evil
* CLERIC: Suicide bombers are OK to kill Coalition troops in Iraq … they are God’s martyrs
SLIMY Ken Livingstone mounted an astonishing defence of a hardline Muslim cleric who yesterday launched a new rant backing suicide bombings. The London Mayor shared a platform with Yusuf al-Qaradawi – who The Sun yesterday exposed as a terror supporter.
Livingstone welcomed the sheik to the capital as an “honoured guest” – ignoring the cleric’s support for child suicide bombings, executing homosexuals, wife-beating and killing Jews. And he even turned on The Sun accusing US of fanning the flames of “Islamaphobia”.
He suggested we should be prosecuted – even though we have only pointed out what the cleric has been calling for. He claimed media coverage of the sheik’s visit showed a need for new laws against religious discrimination. Livingstone said: “British Muslims make an enormous contribution to the capital and this outcry in the tabloid press shows why legislation is necessary.”
Egyptian-born al-Qaradawi said he had been visiting London for 30 years and was baffled by the fuss. But last night, in a pre-recorded TV interview, the rabble-rouser called for suicide bombers to kill Allied soldiers in Iraq. And in London he spoke in support of suicide bombings by Palestinians in Israel.