Britain could have its first Sharia-controlled zone if plans for a mega-mosque more than four times the size of St Paul’s Cathedral get the go-ahead.
The East London mosque, known as the Riverine Centre, will hold 9,312 worshippers, compared to 2,400 at St Paul’s. The 16-acre site in West Ham will include 40ft minarets, an Islamic library, a dining hall, multi-use games areas, tennis courts, sports facilities and eight flats for visiting Muslim clerics.
Police who made 30 arrests at an English Defence League protest in the Midlands have insisted they are powerless to stop the far-right group returning.
As traders in Walsall tried to return to normal after Saturday’s gathering, officers said their hands were tied in the eyes of the law. A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said: “Even if we get intelligence to suggest a future protest isn’t going to be peaceful, the law states a static protest is a human right and needs to be facilitated. A march can be banned, but not a static protest.”
The English Defence League’s leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) was due to speak at a meeting in London’s Conway Hall next week on the subject “Islam and Islamophobia: which is a threat to Britain?” Unfortunately for “Tommy”, he has been deprived of the opportunity to promote his hate-filled views about Muslims because the Conway Hall management cancelled the booking after complaints by Unite Against Fascism, Searchlight and other concerned parties.
Sam Harris presents his characteristically nuanced thoughts on The Innocence of Muslims and what he terms “the latest wave of Muslim hysteria and violence”. He writes:
“Consider what is actually happening: Some percentage of the world’s Muslims – Five percent? Fifteen? Fifty? It’s not yet clear – is demanding that all non-Muslims conform to the strictures of Islamic law.”
Five men arrested in dawn raids by counter-terrorism officers on suspicion of posting race hate material will not face any charges, The Northern Echo can reveal.
The suspects – including two men from the North-East – were detained in April when dozens of plain-clothed and uniformed officers swooped on several addresses across the UK. Computers, laptops and mobile phones were seized during the operation.
But last night, the North-East Counter Terrorism Unit revealed that, following discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), it had been decided no charges would be brought.
ENGAGE has a useful summary of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey and what it reveals about popular views on migration in general and Muslim migrants in particular.
Overall opinion of the settlement of migrants is negative, with only 24% of respondents holding a positive view and 60% rating the impact negatively. 75% of respondents advocated a reduction in immigration and 51% a large reduction.
The public are significantly more concerned now than they were a decade ago about the economic impact of migration, but there has been an even bigger growth in opposition to the cultural impact. Those who view the cultural impact of immigration as “very bad” have increased from 9% in 2002 to 21% in 2011.
Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier
A French satirical magazine published nude cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed Wednesday, a move that could further inflame tensions after violent protests in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film.
The cover of Charlie Hebdo shows a Muslim in a wheelchair being pushed by an Orthodox Jew under the title “Intouchables 2”, referring to an award-winning French film about a poor black man who helps an aristocratic quadriplegic.
Another cartoon on the back page of the weekly magazine show a naked turbaned Mohammed exposing his posterior to a film director, a scene inspired by a 1963 film starring French film star Brigitte Bardot.
The English Defence League may have hit the skids in the UK, but that hasn’t prevented the EDL leadership from still being feted by their fellow anti-Muslim racists in the “international counter-jihad movement”.
Last week EDL leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) and his sidekick Kevin Carroll were in New York to attend the grandly titled International Freedom Defense Congress organised by mad Pamela Geller’s Stop Islamization of Nations to mark the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. Geller’s enthusiasm for her British guests and their heroic stand against the Muslim takeover of Britain was unrestrained, and she reproduces a report that hails Lennon and Carroll in the following breathless terms: “These brave gents refuse to leave their homes in spite of the fact that their country is now in the second stage of Islamic transformation.”
The English Defence League was planning to hold a demonstration in Norwich on 27 October, the primary purpose of which was to express solidarity with a notorious right-wing Christian Islamophobe, the Rev Alan Clifford, whose church has been refused permission to hold a stall on local authority premises after a well-founded complaint that it was distributing anti-Muslim hate literature.
However, having held a meeting with regional organisers to discuss the way forward following their organisation’s recent humiliation in East London, the EDL leadership has announced that the Norwich protest has been postponed and they intend to return to Walthamstow and hold a further demonstration there on that date.
It looks like the right-wing press is resuming its hysterical campaign against the proposed Tablighi Jamaat markaz at the Riverine Centre in Newham. “Bomb fear at mega mosque” is the shock horror headline to an article in the Daily Star Sunday, which follows the recent scaremongering report in the Evening Standard.