Category Archives: Left Wing

Labour candidate suspended

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John Cowan

A Labour candidate has been suspended after allegedly saying on an internet forum that he would not want any children of his to marry a Muslim.

John Cowan, who is said to have admitted paying cash to a cleaner claiming benefits, called the row a “storm in a tea cup”.

His suspension comes too late for him to be replaced on the ballot paper for South East Cambridgeshire. A party spokesman said he hoped voters may “hold their noses” but vote Labour.

BBC News, 26 April 2010

See also “Election 2010: Labour suspends John Cowan over ‘unacceptable messages'”, Guardian, 26 April 2010

Islamophobes – they can dish it out but they can’t take it

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at his Gauche blog, City University lecturer and former Tribune editor Paul Anderson recounts how he shouted and swore at journalists from the university’s student paper the Inquirer when they approached him over a story about his fellow lecturer Rosie Waterhouse, who had called for a ban on the niqab at the university.

What provoked Anderson’s fit of apoplexy was that “the key quote the Inquirer team had for their story, from the president of the student Islamic Society at City, Saleh Patel, was blatantly abusive a rsity.

Faced with Anderson’s ire, and no doubt fearful of future retribution, the Inquirer didn’t use the quote from Saleh Patel. So much for freedom of expression, eh?

This is par for the course with Islamophobes. Anderson has no objection to his friend Waterhouse describing the wearing of the niqab by students as “offensive and threatening” (what confidence can such students have that they will be welcomed at City University’s Department of Journalism?). And he thinks he has the right to accuse the City University Islamic Society of having “relentlessly pushed a separatist and intolerant version of Islam, repeatedly promoting apologists for terrorist violence and the most reactionary social attitudes”.

But Anderson furiously rejects the right of his opponents to criticise him harshly in return.

More sharia hysteria from mad Maryam Namazie

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2A Scottish law firm has become the first in the country to offer clients “conventional” legal representation alongside advice on sharia law.

Hamilton Burns, based in Glasgow’s south side, has teamed up with an eminent Muslim scholar who will counsel clients on the Islamic aspect of civil law cases, while solicitors give advice under Scots law. Clients will be able to see a Muslim lawyer who is fully trained in Scots law at the same time as they consult a sharia scholar who is an expert in Islamic law. It will be the first time such a service has been offered in Scotland.

Despite public fears over what is deemed “creeping” sharia law, the firm stressed that the sharia advice was not legally binding and would mainly focus on giving Islamic guidelines on divorce or child custody based on rigorous readings of the Koran. Shaykh Amer Jamil, the Islamic scholar who will provide sharia advice, wants to make sure that Muslims have access to the correct religious ruling on matters such as divorce.

However, critics and opponents accuse sharia of being a discriminatory and sexist legal system and an “extension” of the fundamentalist laws that allow hand amputations and stonings in countries such as Saudi Arabia. Maryam Namazie, an ex-Muslim and spokesperson for One Law for All warned that Islamic law was not as innocuous as the firm claimed. She said:

“Sharia law is discriminatory. It is antithetical to laws that have been fought for and hard won by progressive social movements, particularly in areas of family matters. Laws related to family matters are the result of wrestling control from the church – now it is being handed back to sharia law to violate rights. The civil matters sharia law decides on here is an extension of the criminal matters it decides on in Islamic states, such as stoning, amputations and so on.”

Herald, 8 March 2010

Right-wing press continues witch-hunt of IFE, with the assistance of Jim Fitzpatrick

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the headline “Extremist Muslims have ‘wormed their way into Labour Party’ minister warns”, the Daily Mail offers a rehash of yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph article, with one accompanying picture suggesting that IFE supports the terrorist acts of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan while another illustrates the mythical “hijab-inspired arch Tower Hamlets council has proposed be built at either end of Brick Lane”.

The Daily Star tells its readers that “Muslim extremists are plotting to take over the Labour Party and turn Britain into an Islamic state…. Extremist groups hope their followers will become councillors and MPs. But their allegiance will be to Jihad, or holy war, and enforcing sharia law across the UK. Sharia imposes punishments including stoning and amputations.”

And this piece comes complete with a picture of the well-known IFE supporter Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan is intent on generating the maximum publicity for his anti-IFE documentary, “Britain’s Islamic Republic“, due to be screened in Channel 4’s Dispatches slot this evening.

Under the headline “Sir Ian Blair’s deal with Islamic radical”, Gilligan reveals that the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner had close contact with Azad Ali through the latter’s leading role in that notorious agency of jihadist terrorism, the Muslim Safety Forum. In fact, relations were so close that “Sir Ian or his deputy committed to meet Mr Ali and the MSF at least twice a year”.

Gilligan’s scaremongering over the MSF is rather undermined by a Metropolitan Police spokesperson who states: “We are currently working with the Muslim Safety Forum to review how it can best represent London’s diverse Muslim Communities so that we can better understand and then act on their concerns about safety and security.”

Update:  Over at the anti-Muslim blog Harry’s Place Tory London Assembly member Andrew Boff  has been receiving some stick because of his backing for the East London Mosque.

Indeed, at last week’s Mayor’s Question Time, Boff put the following question to Boris Johnson: “Would you Mr Mayor along with me support the efforts of the many faith communities especially in East London in the way in which they work together, and I mention in particular the role of the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre, which you so kindly visited last year, working with the other faith communities in order to break down the misunderstandings that can exist?” To which Johnson replied “Yeah”.

Boff has responded to Harry’s Place in the following terms: “‘Some in Labour’ may be right to think that there are votes in Islamaphobia. Forgive me if I decline to take up your kind offer of pursuing them too. I don’t want to feel that dirty when I go to bed at night.”

And quite right too. True, Boff’s stand may be motivated in large part by concern for the electoral prospects of his friend Tim Archer, the Tory candidate standing against Jim Fitzpatrick in the Poplar and Limehouse constituency. But at least Boff is taking the right stand, which is more than can be said for Fitzpatrick and others in the Labour Party.

Defend Jamaat-e-Islami against ‘secularism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jamaat Gaza protest
Jamaat-e-Islami demonstration against Israel’s attack on Gaza

Under the heading “Bangladesh set to become again a secular state”, left-wing blogger Andrew Coates has enthusiastically hailed what he claims is a decision by the government of Bangladesh to restore the secular foundations of the country’s constitution.

He bases his post on reports that the Supreme Court in Dhaka has upheld a ruling that the government can reverse amendments made to the constitution in the period following the military coup of 1975. Coates approvingly quotes law minister Shafique Ahmed as saying: “In the light of the verdict, the secular constitution of 1972 already stands to have been revived. Now we don’t have any bar to return to the four state principles of democracy, nationalism, secularism and socialism as had been heralded in the 1972 statute of the state.”

There were indeed amendments made to the 1972 constitution after 1975 that undermined the secular basis of the state. The religious invocation “Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim” (“In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful”) was added to the preamble of the constitution, and Islam was declared to be the official state religion of Bangladesh. To overturn those amendments would of course be entirely legitimate from the standpoint of establishing a secular state, and if the government of Bangladesh were proposing to change the constitution accordingly there would be no objection.

However, the government has shown little enthusiasm for such a change. Following a meeting last month between the ruling Awami League and its coalition partners, one of whom urged that the constitution should be amended along those lines, prime minister Sheikh Hasina stated firmly that the words “Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim” would be left unchanged in the constitution, as would the declaration that Islam is the state religion.

It is not difficult to identify the motive behind this decision. During the 2008 election campaign the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami accused the Awami League of hostility towards Islam, and Sheikh Hasina no doubt reasons that if her government were to abolish the religious elements in the constitution this would be exploited by the opposition. So an entirely justifiable change that would restore the secular principle to the constitution has been rejected on pragmatic, not to say opportunistic, political grounds.

What, then, are the “secular foundations” of the 1972 constitution that the Bangladesh government wishes to restore? Well, crucially they want to reinstate a provision, subsequently removed, which declared that “no person shall have the right to form, or be a member or otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other association or union which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or pursues, a political purpose”.

Indeed, following the Supreme Court’s verdict, Shafique Ahmed was quoted as saying that all religion-based parties should “drop the name of Islam from their name and stop using religion during campaigning”, and he went on to announce that religion-based parties are going to be “banned”. In short, what the government of Bangladesh is planning to do is to amend the constitution in order to illegalise Jamaat-e-Islami.

What does this have to do with secularism? Nothing whatsoever. If a secular constitution required the suppression of faith-based political parties, then secularism in Germany would require a ban on the Christian Democrats. And nobody, not even a secularist ultra like Andrew Coates, is calling for that.

You can imagine how different the response would be if a government headed by Jamaat-e-Islami were to propose a ban on secular parties in Bangladesh, on the grounds that they conflicted with the Islamic basis of the constitution. Coates, along with the likes of Harry’s Place and the Spittoon, would be furiously denouncing “totalitarian Islamism” and its contempt for democratic principles. But a secular party proposes to ban an Islamist party and you don’t hear a peep from them.

Fitzpatrick joins Torygraph in witch-hunt of IFE

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jim FitzpatrickA Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain.

The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) – which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state – has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said. “They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”

Sunday Telegraph, 28 February 2010

See also “Inextricably linked to controversial mosque: the secret world of IFE“, by Andrew Gilligan, in the same issue. Gilligan reveals that IFE “is dedicated, in its own words, to changing the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam’.” That would be as distinct from, say, the Roman Catholic Church, which of course has no intention of transforming society in line with the principles of Christianity.

According to Gilligan, members of IFE are required to read “the key works of the revolutionary political creed known as Islamism, which advocates the overthrow of secular democratic government and its replacement by Islamic government”. Which those of us who reject Gilligan’s Islamophobic hysteria might think is hardly an imminent prospect in the UK, where 97% of the population is non-Muslim.

Not that this concerns the Telegraph. Under the headline “This secretive agenda must be taken seriously“, an editorial warns that “developments in Tower Hamlets are worrying news for British democracy”.

NPA denounced for standing hijab-wearing candidate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ilham MoussaidOlivier Besancenot, the postman-turned-revolutionary at the helm of France’s anti-capitalist movement, has been fiercely criticised from all sides of the political spectrum for fielding a headscarf-wearing candidate in forthcoming elections.

Ilham Moussaid, a 21-year-old Muslim woman who describes herself as “feminist, secular and veiled”, is running for the far-left New Anti-Capitalist party (NPA) in the south-eastern region of Avignon. But, despite her insistence that there is no contradiction between her clothing and her political role, Moussaid’s candidacy in the regional vote due in March has angered other feminists and politicians.

In an echo of the controversy raised by recent moves to ban the full, face-covering veil in public places such as schools, hospitals and buses, critics have said that the young activist’s headscarf, which conceals only her hair, goes against values of laïcité – secularism – and women’s rights.

Today, in a sign of how deep concerns are running, a leading feminist group announced it would file an official complaint against the NPA’s list of candidates in the Vaucluse département to protest against what it called an “anti-secular, anti-feminist and anti-republican” stunt.

“In choosing to endorse ‘open’ laïcité, the NPA is perverting the values of the Republic and suggesting we reread them in a manner which conforms with regressive visions of women,” said the Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) association in a statement.

Others have expressed their shock at Besancenot’s attempt to field a candidate who sees no problem with making an overt statement about her religion in the public sphere, a practice considered taboo.

Guardian, 11 February 2010

Defending Moazzam Begg and Amnesty International

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Guantanamo Files“Just when it seemed that Republicans in America had a monopoly on Islamophobic hysteria, the Sunday Times prompted a torrent of similar hysteria in the UK by running an article in which an employee of Amnesty International – Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at the International Secretariat – criticized the organization that employed her for its association with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg.

“Before getting into the substance – or lack of it – in Sahgal’s complaints, it should be noted first of all that her immediate suspension by Amnesty was the least that should have been expected. What other organization would put up with an employee badmouthing them to a national newspaper on a Sunday, and then allow them to return to work as usual on Monday morning?”

Andy Worthington’s blog, 10 February 2010

Parliamentary inquiry condemns veil as ‘un-French’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islamic full-body veil should be banned from French public offices, hospitals, trains and buses, according to a parliamentary investigation which reported yesterday. In a bad-tempered final session, the committee of inquiry angered many members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling centre-right party by rejecting their demands for an outright ban on the burka or niqab. After a muddled and heated six-month investigation, the committee decided that such a ban might be declared unconstitutional under French and European law.

Instead, a narrow majority of the 32 members accepted a compromise suggested by Mr Sarkozy and the Prime Minister, François Fillon. They called for a solemn, but unenforceable, parliamentary motion declaring the full-length veil – a marginal but growing phenomenon in France – to be “un-French”. They said that this should be followed soon by a law forbidding people to cover their faces in “official” public spaces, from hospitals to post offices.

The committee’s recommendation split the ruling Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) down the middle. The party’s parliamentary leader, Jean-François Cope, immediately announced that he would push ahead with his own draft law calling for an outright ban. Officially, Socialist MPs boycotted the final meeting of the inquiry, alleging that it had been “polluted” by party politics and hijacked by “faction fighting” within the UMP. Several leading socialist politicians defied the boycott, however, and support an outright ban.

The possibility of a law against the full-length veil was first raised last summer by a Communist MP.

Independent, 16 January 2010

Cf. Raphaël Liogier, “France’s attack on the veil is a huge blunder”, Comment is Free, 26 January 2010