Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Is Russia turning Muslim?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel Pipes says it is. A few days ago he contributed a typical scaremongering piece to the Washington Times, using the recent right-wing nationalist riots in Moscow as a peg on which to hang the claim that Russia faces a real prospect of “Muslims becoming a majority in the 21st century – a demographic revolution that would fundamentally change the country’s character”.

Moscow’s nationalist rioters, Pipes seemed to be suggesting, were not wrong in fearing a Muslim threat to “their” country, even if their violent response was regrettable.

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Give Muslim free school more time, plead parents

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al-Madinah School nameplateA new parents’ group set up to support Derby’s failing Muslim free school is to petition the Government for time to turn the school around.

The Parents and Friends of Al Madinah School has been formed following a meeting of mums and dads last weekend in the wake of a damning report by Ofsted – the Office for Standards in Education. It called the school, which has sites in Nelson Street and Friar Gate, “dysfunctional”, “in chaos” and “inadequate”, placing it in special measures.

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Muslims harassed as they pray at Upton Park

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims praying at Upton ParkThis is the “disturbing” moment when West Ham fans turned on their own Muslim supporters as they prayed just before half-time at Saturday’s match against Manchester City.

The small group of Muslim supporters were kneeling eastwards and bowing their heads in the concourse of the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand at Upton Park, east London, when they were spotted by fellow fans.

They were conducting their Mahgrib prayers at about 6pm – the fourth of devout Muslims’ five prayers a day. It was about 10 minutes before half-time and the concourse was relatively quiet.

The supporters, who are understood not to have made any complaint, had been invited to the club as part of a highly commended initiative to forge closer links with local community groups. As such the sight of fans praying would have been unusual. They were met first by disbelief, then swearing and finally by increasingly loud chants of “Irons”, the club’s nickname, apparently intended to drown out the prayers.

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Three in court over ‘Muslim patrol’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jamaal UddinA Muslim convert who was part of an east London gang of self-styled vigilantes calling themselves the “Muslim Patrol” pleaded guilty in court on Friday to assaulting two people in the street.

Jordan Horner, 19, [pictured] admitted two charges of assault and using threatening words and behaviour in January this year. Police had investigated a number of instances in which groups of men tried to intimidate members of the public.

Horner, from Walthamstow, London, who has previously been jailed for assaulting a photographer outside the home of a radical Islamist preacher, is said to have carried out the attacks with two other Muslim men, Ricardo MacFarlane, 26, and a 23-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons. The latter two men deny all charges.

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A week is a long time in counterjihadism: A balance sheet of Stephen Lennon’s break with the EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lennon Nawaz and CarrollA week ago when Stephen Lennon announced, at a press conference organised by the Quilliam think tank, that he and Kevin Carroll had resigned from the leadership of the English Defence League, his game plan seemed obvious.

It looked as though Lennon intended to use Quilliam to provide a cover of legitimacy for his entirely spurious break from far-right extremism, and then set up a more mainstream Islamophobic organisation which, by distancing itself from the racist thugs and neo-Nazis who infest the EDL, would enjoy greater credibility within the international “counterjihad” movement. Presumably, having served their purpose, Quilliam would then be ditched by Lennon in favour of building links with the Islamophobia industry in the US, which is after all where the big money is to be found.

At first, all seemed to be going to plan. The Quilliam press conference last Tuesday worked even better than Lennon could possibly have hoped, resulting in saturation coverage from TV channels and national newspapers and launching Lennon into a series of softball media interviews in which he faced no serious challenge over his four-year record at the head of a mob of violent anti-Muslim psychopaths.

Lennon’s main links to the US Islamophobia industry, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, had been primed in advance about his decision to leave the EDL. They immediately issued statements (here and here) enthusiastically endorsing Lennon’s move and declaring that they looked forward to working with him in the future. The former EDL leaders’ refusal to condemn their US associates was taken by Spencer as confirmation that there was “no indication that Robinson or Carroll have given up on their resolve to resist jihad terror and Islamic supremacism”. As I wrote at the time, it appeared that Quilliam had succeeded only in smoothing the way for Lennon’s transition into the leadership of a new and more profitable “counterjihadist” enterprise.

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West Yorkshire PCC in call for greater EDL powers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

West Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner is calling for forces to have more power to ban demonstrations such as those held by the English Defence League (EDL).

It follows an EDL rally in Bradford on Saturday that cost the force about £1m to police. Mark Burns-Williamson wants the government to allow chief constables to have the power to ban such demos. One EDL supporter at the rally told the BBC it was “the only way” to be heard.

About 1,000 police officers from several forces were involved in policing Saturday’s protest between the EDL and We are Bradford. Police said it involved about 700 EDL supporters and 120 counter protesters. Eleven people were arrested for public order offences.

At present, static protests such as those held by the EDL cannot be banned. Mr Burns-Williamson said he would be writing to the government “clearly setting out” that it “needs to review the legal framework”. He said he wanted more powers given to the chief constables, who in consultation with police and crime commissioners and other organisations, could make “informed decisions” about such protests.

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The EDL after Bradford

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Bradford October 2013

After yesterday’s English Defence League protest in Bradford, the first since the resignation of its leaders Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll, some anti-fascists have been keen to write the organisation off. EDL News, for example, reported the demonstration under the title “EDL drags its twitching corpse to Bradford”, while Hope Not Hate reported that a mere 300 EDL supporters joined a march that was only 11 metres long.

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Why the English Defence League is not ‘an irrelevance’: A response to Mehdi Hasan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al-Rahma Islamic Centre fire (3)
Muswell Hill’s al-Rahma Islamic Centre ablaze – with the letters “EDL” visible on the wall of the burning building

“Who needs Tommy Robinson and the EDL, when Islamophobia has gone mainstream?” The question is posed by Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and Huffington Post.

He provides some good illustrations of how the bigoted rhetoric of former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) is barely distinguishable from the anti-Muslim propaganda of the mainstream media. Mehdi of course has a point here. Indeed, it has long been obvious that, in addition to the inspiration provided by the international “counterjihad” movement, a large part of the EDL’s ideology derives from right-wing newspapers like the Mail, the Express and the Daily Star. However, Mehdi concludes from this that Lennon “is an irrelevance. So, for that matter, is the EDL. The hate-filled antics of these balaclava-clad thugs have distracted us from a much bigger issue: Islamophobia went mainstream long ago, with the shameless complicity of sections of the press.”

This seems to me to be a false argument. That the existence of mainstream Islamophobia is often either underestimated or denied outright is undoubtedly true. And Mehdi is correct to stress that “the denialism about rampant Islamophobia, on the left and the right, has to stop”. But this shouldn’t lead us to ignore the fact that the EDL, and Lennon personally, have played a distinct role in inflaming the Islamophobic sentiments of a thuggish minority among the population and encouraging them to translate their anti-Muslim hatred into violent action.

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Mail backs French journalist accused of slandering CCIF

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nous sommes la nation (2)
Poster for the “We are the nation” campaign launched by the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France in 2012

A French journalist is facing a criminal trial under the country’s strict press laws for remarks made during a radio debate about the influence of Islam.

Ivan Rioufol, 61, believes the way he is being treated is an example of how writers are criminalised when the state is able to control the media. He was summoned to court under strict press laws which date back to the 19th Century following a complaint from a pressure group called the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF).

“In seeking to undermine liberty of expression, a sacred principle of our civilisation, the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) takes the risk of appearing like a menace to democracy,” said Mr Rioufol. “This is essentially what I hope to be able to explain in court, because I will have to appear in a few months before the 17th Criminal Court in Paris.”

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