Category Archives: Analysis & comment

EDL resists Islamification of Legoland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FamilyFunDay Legoland adThe past few days have seen a frothing-at-the-mouth far-right campaign against a decision by Legoland Windsor to allow a Muslim organisation to hire the theme park for a family day out.

You may think you’ve heard this before, and you would be right. This is essentially a rerun of the campaign last year against an event at Chessington World of Adventures held by the same Muslim group, and in both cases the source of the campaign was a post on an extremist anti-Muslim website called Kafir Crusaders.

In the course of this latest outbreak of anti-Muslim hysteria the Legoland Windsor Facebook page has been assailed by angry bigots from the English Defence League and Casuals United, to the extent that Legoland evidently became tired of deleting abusive comments and took the page down. Opponents of the Family Fun Day have set up a Boycott Legoland Windsor Facebook page and are planning to demonstrate outside the park and harass the families who are attending the event. The EDL Facebook page has featured the usual calls for the venue to be blown up with all the people in it.

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Labour councillor claims anti-EDL protest will ‘create a battleground on the streets of Grantham’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Grantham counter-protest

A district councillor has condemned the actions of those organising a counter-protest in Grantham later this month.

The Journal broke the news online yesterday (Monday) that John Morgan, husband of Labour district and county councillor Charmaine Morgan, is organising a demonstration on St Peter’s Hill against a protest by the English Defence League, which opposes the building of an Islamic Community Centre in Mowbeck Way, Grantham.

But Councillor Ian Selby has reacted in horror and believes any counter-protest, planned for Saturday, February 22, would be “playing into the hands of the EDL”, and could see women and children getting seriously hurt if protests turn violent.

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Quilliam intent on maintaining close relations with former EDL leaders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lennon and NawazSince they announced the resignation of Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) from the English Defence League at a heavily publicised press conference last October, Quilliam’s relationship with the former EDL leader hasn’t turned out to be quite the success they had anticipated.

Not only has Quilliam’s claim that Lennon had broken with extremism been widely recognised as baseless, but they have suffered the additional embarrassment of being publicly associated with a convicted criminal currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for mortgage fraud. Consequently, Quilliam’s initial expectation that they might win back some of their once generous state funding on the basis of facilitating Lennon’s departure from the EDL has failed to materialise. With Lennon incarcerated and out of public view for most of this year at least, Quilliam would have been well advised to move on, forget the whole sorry business and hope that everyone else did too.

However, while it would be quite understandable if Quilliam were indeed getting cold feet over their links with Lennon and backtracking from the relationship, this is clearly not the case. Showing complete disregard for the first law of holes, Quilliam have in fact been working hard to attract further publicity for their protégé, on the basis of a claim that he has been the victim of physical violence from his fellow prisoners.

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Tory MP says Ukip politician’s call for Muslim code of conduct is frightening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Halfon CFI & HJSGerard Batten, the senior Ukip politician who called for Muslims to sign a code of conduct, has been accused of taking an “unbelievably sinister” position that is comparable to asking members of the faith to wear a yellow star.

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, called on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to sack Batten for his comments, after it emerged the Ukip MEP had helped write a “charter of Muslim understanding”. The document calls on Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and accepting the need to modify the Qur’an.

Halfon, who is Jewish and has spoken out repeatedly against Islamic extremism, told the Guardian he considered Batten’s views “unbelievably sinister” and “frightening”. He tweeted: “Big difference btwn lawful Muslims & extreme Islamists. UKIP MEP Batten’s statement a 1st step to wearing a Yellow Star.”

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How Quilliam used former EDL leaders to appeal for money

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hasan Lennon and NawazThe alacrity with which Quilliam embraced former English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) and Kevin Carroll, and presented them at a heavily publicised press conference last October as men who had renounced their former extremist views, raised considerable suspicions among Quilliam’s critics. It has been widely suggested that Quillaim’s motive was to try and regain some of the lavish state funding they once enjoyed under Labour but which had been withdrawn by the present coalition government.

Sure enough, an FOI request has revealed that Maajid Nawaz, chairman and co-founder of Quilliam, immediately fired off two emails to Mark Carroll at the Department for Communities and Local Government asking for financial assistance to facilitate Lennon and Carroll’s supposed break with extremism.

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Far-right groupuscule engages in stupid provocation in Whitechapel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First Christian patrol leafletBritain First have been crowing over their latest idiotic stunt, namely the organisation of a so-called Christian Patrol in East London. (EDL News and Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion have the details.)

This involved handing out leaflets in Whitechapel on Friday evening asking passers-by to report any sightings of the so-called Muslim Patrols. In a video of the stunt, Britain First chairman Paul Golding explains that two of his members are openly smoking cigarettes and drinking cans of Stella near the East London Mosque in an attempt to “draw the Muslim Patrols out”. Given that these “patrols” involved no more than a handful of individuals and the ringleaders are now in prison, that was always going to be unlikely. The actions of Britain First amounted to nothing more than a crude provocation in an area with a large Muslim population.

Golding is currently on bail following an incident in which he and his friends harassed Anjem Choudary, and one of his bail conditions is that he should not enter the Greater London area, so you might like to ask the Metropolitan Police if they have any plans to arrest him.

Update:  See “Extremist patrols unwelcome in Tower Hamlets”, East London Mosque press release, 3 February 2014

Swiss Islamophobes use ‘mass immigration’ referendum to push anti-Muslim line

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Egerkingen Committee anti-Muslim posterOn 9 February the Swiss electorate will vote in a referendum on a proposal to reintroduce immigration quotas. The initiative, “against mass immigration”, by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party has been gaining ground, with an opinion poll last month finding 43% support for the proposal, up 6% since December. Le Temps has reported that other right-wing forces backing the initiative have seized the opportunity to promote their own rabidly Islamophobic agenda.

The Egerkingen Committee, which co-ordinated the successful campaign for a “yes” vote in the 2009 referendum over a proposed ban on minarets, is using the current anti-immigration campaign to denounce the threat of “creeping Islamisation”, warning against a “massive increase in the Muslim population” that would alter the “essence of Switzerland”. It has produced a poster that recycles the image of a woman wearing a full veil previously used in the anti-minaret campaign and predicts that there will soon be a million Muslims in Switzerland.

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France: Mosques in Vandoeuvre and Pontarlier are attacked, while Islamophobic incidents continue to rise

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vandoeuvre mosqueThe Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France has reported that two mosques were attacked last week.

On the night of 28-29 January the Al Ihsan mosque and cultural centre in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy suffered extensive damage – its doors were smashed and the administrative office completely ransacked. (The same mosque was targeted in September 2012, when the building was defaced with Kahanist graffiti.) The following night a mosque in Pontarlier was the victim of a far-right graffiti attack, with a swastika and an “SS” symbol sprayed in white paint on the doors.

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Danny Lockwood threatens Islamophobia Watch, but thankfully only with libel action – he’s not proposing to headbutt us

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Danny Lockwood Islamic RepublicPress publisher Danny Lockwood headbutted man who criticised newspaper

Dewsbury Reporter, 1 February 2014

A publisher and columnist headbutted and punched a man who accused his newspaper of producing “discriminatory” articles.

Liam Ellis began talking to The Press’ Danny Lockwood in the Fox and Hounds pub in Hanging Heaton last April. Moments after Lockwood left, Mr Ellis went outside to apologise for the disagreement. But Lockwood headbutted Mr Ellis and repeatedly hit his upper body, forcing him back into the lobby. Kirklees Magistrates’ Court heard yesterday (Friday) that Mr Ellis needed five stitches under his left eye and his vision was still affected.

Lockwood, who represented himself, tried to claim his actions were in self-defence. The 55-year-old, of Main Street, Elvington, York, said Mr Ellis had become loud and threatening during their conversation, branding him and The Press “racist”. The court heard Lockwood had left one part of the pub to move into the taproom earlier in the evening because a man who had previously threatened to kill him was also there. After speaking to Ellis in the taproom, Lockwood said he left the pub feeling “upset, shaken and shaking”. He said he acted in self-defence as he was “in fear of what [Ellis] was going to do next”.

But District Judge Baldwin rejected Lockwood’s account, saying she believed Mr Ellis was going outside to apologise.

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Maajid Nawaz, free speech and the hypocrisy of Quilliam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Maajid Nawaz and friends

Last week the Camden New Journal published a report on the campaign to persuade the Liberal Democrats to remove Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz as their parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead & Kilburn constituency. I sent a letter to the CNJ in response, which was not published, so I reproduce it here:

I was amused to read the indignant complaint by Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz that he had been “censored and silenced” because many people in the Muslim community objected to his tweeting of an offensive cartoon (‘Jesus and Mo’ tweet Nawaz: ‘Calm down’, January 23).

Nawaz’s presentation of himself as a defender of free speech certainly conflicts with my own experience. It’s only a few years since I received a threatening letter from lawyers representing Quilliam, the organisation of which Nawaz is co-founder and chairman, demanding that I cease criticising it and remove all articles from the Islamophobia Watch website that Quilliam found objectionable.

The letter asserted that my criticisms of Nawaz and his colleagues “bear the natural and ordinary meaning that The Quilliam Foundation are hypocrites”. All I can say is – I rest my case.

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