Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

Nova Scotia: racist attacker jailed for one month

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Pictou County woman who cares for her three grandchildren has been sentenced to a month in jail for hurling racial insults at a doctor’s wife and assaulting her, as well as attacking the victim’s rescuer.

Justice Ted Scanlan of Nova Scotia Supreme Court said in a written decision released Tuesday this was one of the most difficult sentencings of his 20 years on the bench. “I have sentenced people for murder, assault, robbery, drugs, you name it. This case stands out,” Scanlan said.

The incident happened in the mall on Westville Road in New Glasgow on May 29, 2011. A drunken Katherine Feltmate, 51, confronted Alizah Khan, asking her why she was wearing a head scarf on a hot day. Khan asked her why she was commenting on what she was wearing when others were wearing sweaters, coats or jackets.

Feltmate then hurled racial and religious slurs at Khan, forced her against a wall, raised her hands and pushed a shopping cart around. Brian Anthony Jarvis came to Khan’s aid, and Feltmate turned on him and accused him of being racist.

Continue reading →

Sunderland Muslims fear arson attacks on cars were carried out by racists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Usman Chaudhry

His car a burnt-out shell, student Usman Chaudhry fears he is the target of racist thugs. The 28-year-old’s Nissan Micra was one of two cars destroyed by arsonists in one weekend. He woke up at 5.30am to see his car on fire outside the house he shares with friends in Pensher Street, Millfield.

Police were first on the scene, but firefighters were already dealing with another blaze in the next street.

Mr Chaudhry, who has lived in the city for 11 months, said: “I was up early because I was preparing for a project. I heard a noise outside and saw my car was on fire. I called the police and woke up my friends who I live with and they extinguished the fire.”

Takeaway shop worker Hussain Mohammad was woken by fire crews putting out a blaze in his Peugeot 306 in Offerton Street. The 27-year-old Iranian national said: “I got up at about 6.30am and the fire engines and police were there. The whole engine was burnt-out.”

Continue reading →

Teenager in veil robbed in Blackburn street

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A teenager who had just left a mosque was punched in the face by a thief who stole her handbag. The 17-year-old has been left with a suspected fractured eye socket, swelling and bruising to her face after the incident on Saturday.

At the time the girl was wearing full Asian dress including a veil. She described the experience as “terrifying”.

Continue reading →

UPS employee assaulted by epithets, bottles and rocks, US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SAN FRANCISCO — Global shipping company UPS violated federal law when it allowed supervisors and coworkers to discriminate against and harass an employee for being Arab and Muslim, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today. The suit also alleged UPS illegally retaliated against the worker after he reported the harassment to the company, his union and the EEOC.

Continue reading →

EDL member charged over pipe bomb threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man has been charged after allegedly making online threats to carry out an “Oslo-style” bomb attack on Muslims.

Kenneth Graham Holden, 30, will appear before magistrates later this month charged with two counts of sending offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing messages or matters.

Police launched a probe after race-hate posts were allegedly made on Facebook in April this year.

Detectives discovered comments threatening a pipe bomb attack on Ocean Road, in South Shields, South Tyneside, inspired by the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.

Continue reading →

CAIR calls for investigation of fire at Minneapolis mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate a suspicious fire outside a mosque in South Minneapolis.

On Tuesday, August 21, a car owned by a Somali Muslim parked outside the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center was set on fire. Mosque leaders say that video surveillance shows that the arsonist spent an hour throwing burning material in the direction of the mosque before setting the car on fire.

“In light of recent hate incidents nationwide, we urge law enforcement officials to review the surveillance video and determine whether the mosque was the intended target of the arson,” said CAIR-MN Executive Director Lori Saroya.

Continue reading →

Yorkshire: £1.5m mosque to create jobs and act as community beacon – EDL not happy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

York mosque

A purpose-built mosque will promote religious integration and help to create jobs in Yorkshire by becoming a major community facility, according to a leading supporter of the project.

Shazad Hussain, who is overseeing the scheme to create a new mosque in York, said he hoped local material and labourers would be involved in the building work, at a time when many construction firms were struggling due to the slump caused by the global financial crisis.

The proposal for a £1.5m mosque has been backed by City of York Council, and the local Muslim community is raising funds to pay for the building costs. The mosque is due to be built in Bull Lane, York, after previous concerns over flooding at the site were addressed.

The project will see the existing mosque, which has been on the site for 27 years, replaced with a new building. The current facilities are struggling to cope with the growing numbers of people who are using them.

Continue reading →

Who was behind the campaign against Islamia Village?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Far Right In Britain

When the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog launched its campaign to get last weekend’s Islamia Village event at Thorpe Underwood Estate cancelled, it wasn’t in fact the blog’s main author, Andy Hughes, who approached the estate’s Trustees on its behalf.

Perhaps it was felt that Hughes still has a bit too much of the EDL thug about him to make a convincing advocate. Anyway, the person who acted as the IFRB representative in discussions with the estate management was an individual named “Damian”. Presumably this was because he had the advantage of middle class respectability as well as being rather more articulate than Hughes (and even, it would appear, a bit of an intellectual on the side).

This tactic seems to have worked well, as Damian certainly made a favourable impression on the Trustees, a spokesperson for whom posted a comment at Harry’s Place that included the following tribute: “Damian did an excellent job giving us accurate, substantiated information. I replied quickly to him, he responded likewise. We maintained a civil working dialogue throughout. He is to be commended.”

Continue reading →

Athens: thousands protest against racism and Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Athens demonstration against Islamophobia

ATHENS — Thousands of immigrants in Greece have taken to the streets to protest anti-Muslim sentiments and racist attacks against foreigners in a country plagued by a huge debt crisis.

“This is a first action against the racist pogroms of the police which encourage the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn to come out in neighborhoods and murder and attack people,” Tasos Anastasiou of the “Expel Racism” movement told Euronews.

Continue reading →