Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

Rhode Island Muslims ask for FBI, police security help after mosque vandalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of Rhode Island’s Muslim community have asked to meet with police and the FBI to request heightened security at their places of worship after the sign for a mosque in North Smithfield was vandalized.

Farid Ansari, president of the Rhode Island Council for Muslim Advancement and an imam at the Muslim American Dawah Center of Rhode Island in Providence, said Tuesday they are concerned because of the fatal attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday and a suspicious fire at a mosque in Missouri on Monday.

“Hopefully, it’s just a simple case of vandalism, but we can’t be sure. Of particular concern is what happened within the Sikh community,” Ansari said. “We can’t just not pay attention to these types of things. We don’t know if they are connected or not.”

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Arsonists set fire to Sheffield cab as driver prays

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mohammed Joydu MiahA Sheffield cabbie has been left unable to work after his vehicle was set on fire while he was praying at his local mosque.

Mohammed Joydu Miah, aged 40, of Nidd Road East, Darnall, was at morning prayers at the Aaliya Mosque, on Staniforth Road, when his cab went up in flames. Mr Miah, a married father-of-two, said he had only parked his cab 10 minutes earlier when it was targeted.

He said while police are investigating the arson attack and his insurance company deals with his claim, he is unable to work – leaving him short of money.

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Fire destroys Missouri mosque in second blaze at the Islamic center in 5 weeks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joplin mosque blaze

A mosque in southwest Missouri burned to the ground early Monday in the second fire to hit the Islamic center in little more than a month, officials said.

The fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin was reported about 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said. The sheriff’s department said the building was a total loss. No injuries were reported and no charges have been filed.

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EDL demonstration in Chelmsford: protestors chanted ‘You burn our poppy, we burn your mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL in Chelmsford (2)

Three men from an anti-Islamic group were arrested on Saturday during a march against plans for a new mosque in Chelmsford.

More than 30 members of the English Defence League waved placards saying “no to radical Islam”, while others shouted racial slurs during a rally from the Plough Inn in Duke Street to the High Street.

The controversial right-wing group was marching against plans for a new mosque in Regina Way, Chelmsford, as part of the Waitrose supermarket development.

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Mosque bomb threat suspect turns self in

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alan CorreaMURFREESBORO, Tenn. — A Texas man accused of making terrorist threats against a local mosque has turned himself in to U.S. Marshals. Twenty-four-year-old Javier Alan Correa arrived with his attorney to surrender to federal authorities on Monday.

Correa was indicted last month for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro last September, just prior to the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on America. The curse filled message left on a machine at the center said “there’s going to be a bomb in the building.”

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Racist thug who attacked Muslim taxi driver escapes prison on technicality

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A taxi driver has hit out at a thug who used a legal loophole to avoid jail after subjecting him to a violent assault.

Shaun Burns, 19, of Mayfield Avenue, Ingol, was found guilty of racially aggravated assault and criminal damage to the taxi during the period of a previous three months sentence, suspended for a year, imposed in May 2011 for affray. But a shameful legal loophole has seen him walk out of court a free man.

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Becket Fund publishes open letter defending Murfreesboro Islamic Center

Posted on by Bob Pitt

No congregation should have its right of religious liberty curtailed solely because some of its neighbors disapprove of its religious beliefs.

In 2010, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro sought to build a new mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where they could worship God in peace on their own property. Although it made every effort to reach out to its neighbors in friendship, the congregation was subjected to a campaign of protest and violence, including vandalism, a bomb threat, and even arson.

This campaign of violence was accompanied by a legal campaign in which the congregation’s opponents claimed that the Muslim religion – one of the world’s largest – was not really a religion, but a political movement seeking to impose “sharia” on the United States. As a result of the legal battle, a local judge has issued a ruling forbidding the congregation from entering its newly completed building. After years of following both the letter and the spirit of the law, the congregation is again seeking permission to use its building – this time in the hope that it will be permitted to do so before the start of Ramadan.

We, the undersigned, represent a diverse array of religious beliefs and have disagreements on a wide variety of theological, political, and social matters. But we are united in supporting the right of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to gather in peace on their own property for their celebration of Ramadan.

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EDL member gets three months for breaking Muslim’s jaw

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Steven Crispin

Hope Not Hate reports that thanks to photographic evidence they were able to give the police, an English Defence League member, Steven Crispin, has been convicted of an attack on two Muslim brothers during an EDL anti-mosque protest in Dagenham last year, in the course of which he kicked one of the victims and fractured his jaw. Unfortunately a decision was taken not to charge Crispin with a racially aggravated offence and he received a jail sentence of just three months.

In December last year another EDL member, John McAndrew, received a 14-month custodial term to serve a minimum of seven months having been convicted of participating in the attack on the brothers. He was subsequently handed a five-year CRASBO banning him attending EDL demonstrations or entering mosques, Islamic cultural centres and Muslim festival sites.

Petition urges hate-crime probe of mosque fire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A progressive evangelical group has launched an online petition urging the U.S. Justice Department to investigate a July 4 fire at a Missouri mosque as a potential hate crime.

Sojourners, a Washington-based organization dedicated to social justice in a Christian context, sent out an e-mail announcing the campaign July 18. It follows an earlier plea by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for state and federal hate crime investigations of a suspicious fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin, Mo.

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Racism and violence from the EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rather that posting individual entries on acts of racism and violence by members of the English Defence League, here is a roundup of three cases from the past 24 hours.

EDL News reports that Sam Burgess, a member of the EDL’s Norwich Division who has been on training courses to work for the Olympics security team, has pictured himself on Facebook with a gun and posted threats against the Muslim community.

The Hull Daily Mail reports that on Saturday evening a group of youth at Hull railway station were assaulted by a man wearing a Grimsby EDL top (presumably on his way back from the EDL’s protest in Bristol).

STV reports that a Scottish Defence League member from Edinburgh named Raymond Strachan (or “Raymo Sdl Strachan” as he likes to call himself) was sentenced to 200 hours’ community service having been convicted of posting racist messages on Facebook.