Category Archives: Ireland

FOSIS disappointed at Irish government’s refusal to let in Yusuf Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) in the UK and Ireland has voiced its disappointment at the Irish Government’s refusal to grant Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi entry into the country.

FOSIS spokesperson, Amandla Thomas Johnson said, “Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi is a distinguished scholar whose views are respected by Muslims from around the world. It is a shame to see that yet another prominent Muslim figure is being targeted due to his religious convictions.”

Thomas-Johnson added, “The opinions of Sheikh Qaradawi are often regarded as a voice of moderation, specifically his firm support of Muslim integration into Western societies. He has frequently and decisively condemned acts of violent extremism, and has authoritatively rejected claims that terrorism is acceptable in Islamic law. His influence spans into Muslim communities around the world; indeed shortly after the Egyptian revolution, it was he that addressed the liberated millions in their Friday sermon – such is the status he holds.”

Thomas-Johnson concluded, “Like the British Government before them, the Irish Government have begun to tread a precarious path by ignoring the fundamental right of individuals to express themselves freely. As long as an individual does not infringe against the law, it is crucial that we allow for a diverse range of ideas and views to be presented for a democratic, respectful and free society”.

FOSIS press release, 10 August 2011

Hitler admirer who describes Muslims as ‘ragheads’ is BNP candidate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Steven Moore BNPA BNP Assembly candidate is exposed as a racist who calls Muslims “Ragheads” and refers to Catholics as “Taigs”. And Steven Moore, who will contest both the East Antrim Assembly and council elections, also has a fascination with Hitler

The party’s Ulster Organiser is one of the first BNP candidates to finally put themselves at the mercy of the electorate. On Wednesday the far-right party announced they would be contesting three Assembly seats and would also be targeting four council seats.

Last week before the Northern Ireland soccer match at Windsor Park, BNP activists connected to football hooligans from Leeds handed out sick anti-Muslim leaflets to fans. The shocking leaflet carried the headline, “Our Children are not Halal Meat” and warned how Muslim paedophile gangs are “preying on vulnerable white girls”.

Despite attempts from the far-right party, led by convicted racist Nick Griffin, to re-brand themselves as a friendly non-racist party they continue to be run by people like Moore.

When Moore isn’t posting videos by white power bands such as Skrewdriver on Facebook, he reveals his fancy for all things “Third Reich” by sharing videos of Adolf Hitler with his online friends. One apparent favourite is entitled: “Why the world cannot forget Adolf Hitler”. He also has a penchant for songs and videos of the German Wehrmacht.

Elsewhere, Moore has thrown his energies into trying to stop a mosque allegedly being built in Ballymena and more recently launched a campaign to terrify the people of Larne that a proposed detention centre for failed asylum seekers will turn their town into some sort of Asian ghetto.

Sunday World, 10 April 2011

BNP’s new Northern Ireland organiser gets to work inciting hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Larne_PatriotThe BNP has taken its race hate message to Larne. Skinhead members of Nick Griffin’s far-right party spent the last week leafleting homes in the Co Antrim seaside town. They put scaremongering mail through doors warning about a new asylum seeker centre which is being built in Larne.

The BNP news-sheet includes a fake picture of two Muslim women dressed in burkas walking down the Glenarm Road. The leaftlet states: “The good folk of Larne do not want their town being used as a dumping ground, holding centre, or whatever name the liberal elite wish to call it. No matter how much sugar coating is applied to this foul tasting proposal, the Ulster BNP … will not have the wool pulled over their eyes.”

But what the BNP leaflet does not say is that the asylum centre is being built inside the local PSNI station. The 25 immigrants held there ahead of deportation will not be able to leave the complex. They will not be allowed enter the town and will be shielded from public view.

Larne Mayor Bobby McKee accused the BNP of whipping up racial tension. He said: “I wouldn’t give these BNP people the time of day. They held a protest at a council meeting at the beginning of September and only 10 people showed up. They have no support.”

Bobby explained that the majority of refugees who will be held at the new detention centre will be children. “They will be held within the grounds of the PSNI station before being deported. It’s not like they will be running the streets,” he added. “Instead of moaning the BNP should recognise the contribution refugees have made to society. They come to Northern Ireland and gladly do the jobs no-one else will do. You’ve got to give them credit for that, they are only trying to escape poverty.”

The BNP Larne leaflet drop was the brainchild of its new Northern Ireland organiser Steve Moore – who was born in the town. On the BNP’s website, Moore said: “Local people are horrified by this news that their town has been earmarked as a dumping ground for illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers.

“We have seen that it is almost impossible to deport anyone from our country because of the insane Human Rights Act. Larne will undoubtedly become home to these economic migrants.”

Belfast Telegraph, 5 October 2010

Regarding the BNP’s new organiser the current issue of Searchlight reports:

“When Moore isn’t posting videos by white power bands such as Skrewdriver on Facebook, he reveals his fancy for all things ‘Third Reich’ by sharing videos of Adolf Hitler with his online friends. One apparent favourite is entitled: ‘Why the world cannot forget Adolf Hitler’. He also has a penchant for songs and videos of the German Wehrmacht. Elsewhere, Moore has thrown his energies into trying to stop a mosque allegedly being built in Ballymena, the heartland of Paisleyism. Like most BNP members, Moore calls Muslims ‘ragheads’ and Catholics ‘taigs’.”

How to spot a terrorist – an Islamic specialist explains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruth Dudley Edwards 2“Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was by all accounts a decent, virtuous teenager who wanted to do good but, lost and alone in London, he fell into a malign embrace.”

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Ruth Dudley Edwards (billed as an “Islamic specialist”) trots out the familiar right-wing clichés about Abdulmutallab being converted to extremism/terrorism during his three years as a student at University College London.

She accuses the UCL authorities of failing in their duty of care to Abdulmutallab: “Did it concern no one that this lonely boy had taken to wearing Islamic dress? Wasn’t anyone worried about the radicalism of the ‘War on Terror Week’ Abdulmutallab organised as [UCL Islamic society] president?”

Yes, really – according to this “Islamic specialist”, wearing traditional clothing and opposing Bush’s “War on Terror” are apparently signs of incipient terrorism.

Continue reading →

The Muslim plan to conquer the West (part 678)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“During an inter-faith meeting in Turkey some years ago, a Catholic bishop recounted how an Islamic cleric told the crowd: ‘Thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our Islamic laws, we will conquer you.’ … It’s not politically correct to admit – or even discuss – the fact that the West is facing one of the greatest challenges to its traditions of plurality, democracy, freedom of speech and expression.

“Instead we call it ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘cultural relativism’ and applaud it, as if tolerating unfair, inequitable and in some cases downright barbaric ‘traditions’ is somehow a noble, righteous cause. It’s not. It’s a deliberate and cowardly attempt to ignore what is going on right under our noses in case we may be branded racist, sectarian or worse…. in Europe ‘multiculturalism’ seems to have developed into a blind tolerance toward any culture and faith – depriving many people, specifically women, of their human rights.

“In 2004, Italian author Oriana Fallaci wrote The Rage and the Pride, in which she criticised both Muslims (bent, according to her, on conquering the West and annihilating its culture) and Europeans (described as spoiled, hypocritical and blind to the moral threat represented by Islamic expansion). A few years later she wrote a follow-up, The Force of Reason. It’s a wonder she had the courage to do this as, in the introduction, she recounts the intellectual lynching she was subjected to following the publication of her first book.

“According to Fallaci, the politically correct establishment, or ‘modern inquisition’, keeps individuals in fear of expressing what they believe. ‘If you are a Westerner and you say that your civilisation is superior, the most developed that this planet has ever seen, you go to the stake. But if you are a son of Allah, or one of their collaborationists, and you say that Islam has always been a superior civilisation, a ray of light … nobody touches you. Nobody sues you. Nobody condemns you.’ Here Fallaci hit the nail on the head, but she was vilified for saying what people refuse to listen to.”

Carol Hunt in the Sunday Independent, 15 November 2009

CAIR to blame for Fort Hood killings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruth Dudley Edwards 2“There’s a climate of fear in the US among the military, law-enforcers, policy-makers, the media, opinion-formers and many ordinary citizens. A major cause is the intimidating Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is dedicated to Muslim empowerment, receives substantial funding from Arab governments and has been accused by federal prosecutors of funnelling money to Hamas.

“So effective and ruthless is CAIR that anyone in authority worries before doing anything that can be misrepresented as anti-Muslim and lead to lawsuits citing religious or racial discrimination. There were plenty of people who might have prevented the psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan from murdering 12 soldiers and a policeman, but were too scared to do so.”

Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Sunday Independent, 15 November 2009

Why Islam was behind the Fort Hood massacre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kevin_Myers“Jihad can be formed as a result of the teachings of an imam, but it boils down to a personal contract between Allah and the believer, based on an extreme interpretation of Islam…. This notion of a personal contract with Allah, that authorises a believer to break even the most civilised and civilising laws of the Koran, is a sure-fire recipe for murderous irrationality and social anarchy. And these have become the defining feature of almost every Muslim society in the world….

“Hence Fort Hood Texas, September 11 New York, July 7 London, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Norway, Bali, Kenya, Tanzania, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Anatolia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bali, Bombay and Australia. Such universal belligerence has no universal cause, other than in the universality of Islam, which seems so often to respond lethally to local conditions, whatever they are.

“… somewhere inside the greater Islamic mind is an absurd sense of victimhood: and where there is no local grievance, why then there is always ‘Palestine’, as if those few disputed acres in the vast Islamic landmass of Afro-Asia merited the unanimous and indignant global furies of all Muslims, from Delhi to Dearborn. This same querulous organ of self-pity also resents Muslims becoming the subject of intelligence operations after an Islamic atrocity….

“This is a sealed moral system, an internal autonomy that is immune to penetration or logic. Fear of such accusations of Islamophobia – phobophobia – almost certainly prevented Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s superior officers from disciplining him for his public jihadist outpourings. Pre-emptive action would certainly have been portrayed by the liberal media as Islamophobic discrimination against a patriotic Muslim, and would have enraged that reliable stock-character of media portrayal, ‘moderate Muslims’. Thirteen genuine patriots are now dead as the price of such phobophobic appeasement.

“More importantly, the US must now wake up to the consequences of its open-door immigration policy, just as Britain did four years ago after July 7. The subsequent pattern will presumably be similar. Watch now, as ‘victimised’ American Muslims close ranks, the burka and the hijab become commonplace amongst their womenfolk and the rest of the US asks in tones of awestruck horror: My God, what have we done?”

Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent, 10 November 2009

For earlier examples of Myers’ thoughtful comments on the issues of Islam and migration, see “Forget lily-livered liberalism, time to take stand and say we don’t want Muslim immigrants“, and “Huge areas of Britain have become foreign colonies. That could be tomorrow’s Ireland, too“. The latter piece was enthusiastically endorsed by the BNP.

Update:  See Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 15 November 2009

Belfast Islamic Centre receives far-right racist threats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of a south Belfast Islamic community centre are in fear of being attacked after it was targeted by a threatening racist letter from a loyalist far-right organisation this week.

The Belfast Islamic Centre on Wellington Park was among organisations, businesses and politicians in south Belfast that have received racist threats over the last few days.

The Islamic Centre, established in 1978 by a group of Muslims from the local community, received a threatening letter on Monday claiming to be from a loyalist far-right organisation stating: “Keep Northern Ireland for white British people.”

Muhammad al-Qaryooti, the centre’s director, said the letter was extremely racist. “The letter said they had ‘no sympathy for foreigners — get out of the Queen’s country’,” said Mr al-Qaryooti.

Belfast Telegraph, 1 July 2009

Al Jazeera TV focus on Irish family who want hijab in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arabic news network Al Jazeera has taken an active interest in the plight of an Irish girl who wants to wear a religious headscarf to school.

The Egan family from Wexford, who were caught up in the row over the wearing of the hijab in Irish schools have been featured on the Al Jazeera English channel. Liam and his wife Beverley requested that their 14-year-old daughter, Shekinah Egan, be allowed to wear the religious headdress to Gorey Community School last September, sparking debate on the issue.

The Government refused to take a stand on the issue, leaving it as a matter for individual schools. Mr Egan has accused the Government of repressing minority rights while “flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy”.

The father of the young schoolgirl spoke to the news network and said that, “It is time the world witnessed the true face of Ireland. “The issue of the hijab [Islamic headscarf] is a reflection of how Ireland treats its minorities,” he said. “It has silently repressed Muslim rights while flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy for far too long.”

Shekinah Egan was allowed to continue wearing the headscarf. However her father claims that several schools moved towards banning the wearing of the hijab, with one school in Dublin stating it violates the country’s “Catholic ethos”.

Ruairi Quinn, Labour Party spokesman, recently spoke about how immigrants who come to Ireland “need to conform”. However, the Egans in Wexford are an Irish family who have converted to Islam. Liam Egan converted to Islam at the age of 28 and his wife Beverley MacKenzie is British born.

“This is not an immigrant issue,” Liam Egan proclaimed. “It’s about freedom to practise religious beliefs. We should not follow the lead of France, where there is no tolerance. People say we should assimilate, but I was born in Wexford – I am Irish and Muslim.”

Evening Herald, 16 September 2008

Policy U-turn on hijab in Irish schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Department of Education outlined its policy on students wearing hijab in a letter to a Dublin school as long ago as 2005. It told a Dublin teacher that she should allow a student to wear the hijab, a Muslim headscarf covering the head but not the face, during PE.

The clearly defined policy contrasts with the lack of guidance given to a principal in Gorey Community School last year when the same issue arose. He was told that it was up to the school’s board of management to decide whether pupils could wear Muslim headdress.

The advice issued in 2005 is contained in a letter released under the Freedom of Information Act. Brian Hayes, Fine Gael’s education spokesman, said it showed that the department had shifted opinion on the wearing of the hijab since first issuing advice three years ago. “It shows that instead of drawing up clear guidelines and sticking to them, the department has just confused its position in the intervening period,” he said.

In 2005, Matthew Ryan, the principal officer in the department’s post-primary administration section, issued a clear directive to Our Lady’s Grove in Goatstown. In a letter he stated: “Where a school admits a person of a religious denomination but then seeks to impose a dress code requirement which runs contrary to that student’s religious beliefs, it may constitute unlawful discrimination against that student.”

The letter states that the Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits a school from discriminating against a student on religious grounds. “It follows that this department would expect schools to allow students of that denomination to wear the hijab and indeed it is our understanding that this approach is being followed by schools,” the department wrote at the time.

Liam Egan, the father of the girl from Gorey Community School whose wearing of the hijab prompted her principal to seek advice from the department, said that equality legislation had not changed since 2005. “The law has not changed, so why has the department changed its position? Since 7/7, this has become more of a political issue. My daughter wore the hijab all through her first year in school and it was not contentious. Then, at the end of the year, it suddenly became an issue,” he said.

Sunday Times, 3 August 2008