Category Archives: Left Wing

Sarrazin launches book amid protests, faces expulsion from SPD

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarrazin book launch

Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Monday said it would begin proceedings for the expulsion of longstanding member Thilo Sarrazin over comments in his new book.

Sarrazin, a central bank executive, officially launched his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany does away with itself”) at a press conference in Berlin on Monday. A series of interviews with Sarrazin last week included xenophobic comments against Muslims and Jews, causing a storm of controversy in the run-up to the launch.

At the launch, Sarrazin reiterated his beliefs about the threat of Muslim culture to European societies. He told reporters that Germans were in danger of becoming “strangers in their own country” and demanded stronger checks on immigrants.

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Neo-Nazi NPD celebrates Thilo Sarrazin’s new book

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Germany’s crazy central banker and hero of the extreme right, Thilo Sarrazin, has outdone himself now with a new book – Deutschland schafft sich ab (“Germany Eliminates Itself”) – which attacks Germany’s Muslim minority.  The book is not even in the bookstores yet, but the excerpts that have been published have already unleashed a firestorm of controversy.

Thilo Sarrazin is a member of the Social Democrat party (SPD) but yesterday the general secretary of the German Jewish Council (Zentralrat der Juden) Stephen Kramer, encouraged Sarrazin to switch to the neo-Nazi NPD, whose platform is more aligned to Sarrazin’s extremist views.

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Germany: Social Democrat attacks Muslim immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarrazin buch Thilo Sarrazin has never been one to mince words. The German central bank board member and former senior city official in Berlin has long been a strident critic of German immigration policies, even going so far as to say in an interview last autumn that immigrants sponge off the state, are incapable of integrating themselves into German society and “constantly produce little girls in headscarves.”

In the interview, which appeared in the cultural magazine Lettre International, he also said that “a large number of Arabs and Turks in (Berlin) … have no productive function other than in the fruit and vegetable trade.” In the same interview, he claimed that the Turks were “conquering Germany … through a higher birthrate.”

This week, though, the Social Democrat (SPD) seems to have outdone himself. German media outlets, including SPIEGEL, have published excerpts of his soon-to-be-published book on Germany’s supposed demise. As Sarrazin makes abundantly clear, that demise comes as a result of immigration. The bluntness with which he presents his ideas has kicked off a debate in Germany, and within the center-left SPD, as to whether Sarrazin has crossed the line into racism and whether he should be censured.

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How Phil Woolas fought the general election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Phil Woolas leaflet

Over at Indigo Jo Blogs, Yusuf Smith draws our attention to this disgraceful leaflet distributed by Labour MP Phil Woolas during his recent election campaign in the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency.

Two days before polling day the Lib Dem leader of Oldham Council lodged a complaint with the Equality and Human Rights Commission about Woolas’s election material. “I believe that this type of inflammatory literature is incredibly detrimental to community relations and promoting equality”, he wrote. And who could disagree?

The defeated Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins, who lost to Woolas by only 103 votes, has challenged the election result on the basis that false claims about him were made in Woolas’s leaflets, including the allegation that he appealed for support from “Muslim extremists”. A court hearing will be held on 13 September to decide whether the election should be re-run.

Catalan mayor closes ‘too popular’ mosque, tells Muslims to ‘pray at home’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Spanish mayor has told Muslim worshippers to “pray at home” and closed the town’s mosque because it was too popular. Angel Ros, the socialist mayor of Lleida, in the northeastern region of Catalonia, complained that the mosque was too full and closed it on Wednesday until further notice.

The building, a former garage used to service trucks, was often filled with crowds exceeding a thousand people, the council said, when the authorised limit for the venue is 240. A new mosque is under construction on the outskirts of the town but work had been stalled because of a lack of financing during the economic crisis.

“The municipality has no obligation to provide places of worship,” Mr Ros said in response to complaints from the town’s Muslim population over the closure. “Those that wish can pray at home, as I do,” he added.

The move follows a recent ban on women wearing the burka or niqab in municipal building in the Catalan town. In June Lleida was the first town council in Spain to introduce a ban, which has since been adopted by half a dozen other councils, including Barcelona, the capital of the region.

Abdelwahab Houzi, the local imam, said the mosque closure had added to the Muslim community’s sense of “persecution” by authorities.

Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2010

French parliament votes to ban veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

France’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public. There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly. It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.

Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values. “Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice.”

“Democracy thrives when it is open-faced,” Ms Alliot-Marie told the National Assembly when she presented the bill last week.

The Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, warned in March that the law could be found unconstitutional. If the bill passes the Senate in September, it will be sent immediately to France’s Constitutional Council watchdog for a ruling. Another challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

BBC News, 14 July 2010

See also “France vote to ban full-face veils condemned by Amnesty”,Amnesty press release, 13 July 2010

French parliament set to vote on veil ban Tuesday

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French passportAs France’s parliament debates whether to ban burqa-like Muslim veils, one lawmaker compares them to muzzles, or “walking coffins.” Another proclaims that women who wear them must be liberated, even against their will.

Amid little resistance, France’s lower house of parliament will likely approve a ban on face-covering veils Tuesday, and the Senate will probably follow suit in September.

Polls show voters overwhelmingly support a ban. In parliament, criticism was mostly timid, and relatively few dissenters spoke out about civil liberties or fears of fanning anti-Islam sentiment in a country where there are an estimated 5 million Muslims, and where mainstream society has struggled to integrate generations of immigrants.

One obstacle, however, may still stand in the way of a ban: the courts. Law scholars say the ban could be shot down by France’s constitutional watchdog or the European Court of Human Rights. That could dampen efforts under way in other European countries toward banning the veils.

Legislator Berengere Poletti, of Sarkozy’s conservative party, argued that women in such garb “wear a sign of alienation on their faces” and “must be liberated,” even if they say the apparel is their own choice.

Communist Andre Gerin, who also supports a ban, said that “talking about liberty to defend the wearing of the full veil is totally cynical – for me, the full veil is a walking coffin, a muzzle.”

Socialist Jean Glavany, one of the few lawmakers to offer stinging criticism of a ban, said dwelling on questions of French identity and whether burqas are welcome in France “is nothing more than the fear of those who are different, who come from abroad, who aren’t like us, who don’t share our values.” He was also one of several lawmakers to question the bill’s “judicial fragility.”

Associated Press, 12 July 2010

See also “French National Assembly debates burqa ban”, WSWS, 12 July 2010 and “French entrepreneur offers to pay veil fines”,Reuters, 12 July 2010

Veil bans spread in Catalonia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There are no burqas on the streets of Tarrés. In fact, there are no Muslims at all in this village of 108 inhabitants in north-east Spain. But that will not stop the parish council debating whether to ban burqas and face-covering niqabs from parts of the village next week.

“It is true that there are no Muslims living in the village now, but this would be a preventive measure in case they come,” said parish councillor Daniel Rivera, from the tiny and openly xenophobic Partit per Catalunya.

Rivera’s motion to ban burqas has outraged many. Other councillors plan to vote against it, but whatever the result, the motion is symptomatic of wider moves in the Catalonia region to ban Islamic veils from public buildings.

Today the nearby provincial capital, Lleida, formally passed a ban that was first announced in May. Women found wearing burqas in public buildings will first be given a warning, but any repeat will lead to a fine of between €300 and €600 (£250-£500).

From Barcelona to Tarragona, bans are being slapped into place across the region. “At this rate we will end up with more bans than burqas,” said the immigration minister, Celestino Corbacho, himself a former town mayor in Catalonia.

The Lleida ban was not passed by the anti-immigrant parties but, as in Barcelona, by a socialist-led council. “This is about equality between men and women,” Mayor Ángel Ros said. “The burqa and the niqab are symbols of the political use of a religious dogmatism that had begun to appear in Lleida.”

Guardian, 2 July 2010

Sunday Mercury witch-hunts Islamic Dawah Centre International, assisted by Roger Godsiff

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qutb MilestonesAn MP has called for an inquiry into a Midland charity which invited a radical Muslim preacher to speak to crowds in Birmingham. A Sunday Mercuryinvestigation has also revealed that Islamic Dawah Centre International (IDCI), is selling books by Muslim extremists through its website.

The Alum Rock-based group had invited Dr Zakir Naik to speak to 13,000 people at the LG Arena this weekend – despite him publicly backing Osama Bin Laden in the past. But Home Secretary Theresa May denied the Indian-born cleric a visa to enter the UK after it emerged that he had branded the US a “terrorist state” and said that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”.

Now, the Sunday Mercury has learned that IDCI is selling books by Dr Naik, as well as Islamic texts by other controversial clerics. The books also include works by Sayyid Qutb, a fundamentalist Egyptian Imam who is is said to have inspired Osama Bin Laden to establish Al Qaeda. An extract from his seminal work, Milestones, is available from IDCI for less than £1.

An edition of the book is understood to have had an influence on the Saudi terror chief who plotted the 9/11 terror attacks on New York’s Twin Towers. Bin Laden’s second in command, Ayman Al Zawahiri, also studied under Qutb’s brother at university in Egypt and has vowed to put the radical cleric’s vision of an Islmaic army fighting for a global Muslim state into action. One Islamic expert told the Sunday Mercury: “Sayyid Qutb is one of the key ideological ancestors of Al Qaeda. The theme of his work is the use of violence to create a ‘proper’ Islamic state.”

The IDCI website also stocks Dr Naik’s Islam and Terrorism? and Towards Understanding Islam by Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, a founder of extremist Islamist faction Jamaat-e-Islami. The Pakistani fundamentalist group aims to replace the government of the sub-continental state with a radical Muslim ruling party and impose strict Sharia law. Mawdudi writes: “Islam requires the Earth – not just a portion, but the whole planet.”

Birmingham MP Roger Godsiff said: “If this registered charity has invited this man to speak, and if there is also concern about them selling this sort of literature then the Charity Commission is duty-bound to investigate, and I hope they do so.”

A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said: “Concerns have been raised with the Charity Commission regarding the Islamic Dawah Centre International. We are currently assessing these concerns in order to establish what, if any, regulatory role the Commission may have.”

Sunday Mercury, 27 June 2010

Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones is of course readily available from a number of mainstream outlets including this one. Does that mean Godsiff and the Sunday Mercury will be calling for an investigation into Amazon on the grounds that it is promoting the ideology of Al Qaeda? Admittedly, Mawdudi’s Towards Understanding Islam is currently listed as “out of stock” at Amazon. So I suppose it would be unreasonable to accuse Amazon of supporting a fundamentalist takeover of the whole planet.