Police, locals deny claim that part of The Hague is a ‘Sharia triangle’

Wilders finds Islamofascism in The Hague
Wilders’ tweet in response to Trouw article: ‘Islamofascism is advancing in the Netherlands’

Claims by newspaper Trouw that part of The Hague’s Schilderswijk district is so dominated by orthodox Muslims they are dictating what people should wear and how they should behave, have been denied by both police and local politicians.

Under the headline “Hague district is orthodox Muslim territory”, Trouw said “short skirts and dresses are not accepted on the street”. The paper said the area, with a population of some 5,000, is known by locals as “The Sharia Triangle”. “Very slowly, the rules in the area are beginning to change,” the article said. “The norms of the majority are beginning to take over.”

Continue reading

Review of Richard Seymour’s ‘Unhitched’

UnhitchedBob Pitt reviews Unhitched: The Trial of  Christopher Hitchens, by Richard Seymour, Verso, 134pp, £9.99.

Labour Briefing, May 2013

The secularists of the British Humanist Association launched a campaign last year to have a statue of the late Christopher Hitchens erected in Red Lion Square in central London. Although this proposal for a permanent tribute to the ex-leftist who evolved into an enthusiastic advocate of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” came to nothing, it understandably generated fierce controversy at the time. Awale Olad, a Labour councillor in Holborn & Covent Garden who was approached by the BHA for his support, replied indignantly that he “would resign before I’d ever support the bust of a pro-war Islamophobe”.

Continue reading

Islamophobia on the rise in France

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfRXDDltCDQ

According to the Observatory of Islamophobia in France, the total number of registered cases has gone up by 28 percent in just one year.

The figures also show that the Internet has become the new battlefield. According to the Observatory, a rising number of hate mails are being circulated through internet, which describe Muslims as terrorists, extremists and a danger to other cultures.

Continue reading

French ministers refuse to attend conference with Tariq Ramadan

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and Manuel Valls
Manuel Valls and Najat Vallaud-Belkacem

He is an Islamic scholar who teaches at Oxford University and a former member of a working group on extremism set up by Tony Blair. Time magazine once described him as the “leading thinker” among Europe’s second and third-generation Muslim immigrants.

Yet two French ministers have suddenly announced that they will not attend a conference in Florence tomorrow on the future of the European Union because of the presence of the scholar, Tariq Ramadan. He is due to be a panellist at the conference, entitled The State of the Union, speaking about “migration, identity and integration”.

The French Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the Women’s Rights Minister who is also a government spokeswoman, informed organisers on Monday evening that they were pulling out, saying they had “not been informed” of Professor Ramadan’s attendance.

Continue reading

‘They gave into Islamophobia’: Omar Mustafa criticises Social Democrat leaders

Omar Mustafa protest (2)
‘Social Democracy, yes. No to Islamophobia!’ – demonstration last week in support of Omar Mustafa

Omar Mustafa has spoken out about his disappointment in the Social Democrat party, saying he felt let down by the leadership after being ousted from the party’s governing board just a week after his appointment.

“My involvement in different Muslim civil society organizations was seen as a burden and they asked me to give up my position,” Mustafa told newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).

Mustafa, who chairs Sweden’s Islamic Association (Islamiska förbundet), resigned from all his duties with the party after mounting criticism centring on the Islamic Association’s links to individuals with known anti-Semitic and homophobic views.

Asked if there was a particular incident that made him agree to quit the Social Democrats, Sweden’s left-of-centre opposition party, Mustafa replied that the leadership had sent a clear signal that the party lacked confidence in him.

“There was neither will nor ability to handle the media hunt against me even though they know very well that I have done nothing wrong and that the media hunt turned Islamophobic in character,” Mustafa wrote in the email interview with SvD.

He declined to clarify who “they” are but said it felt like “one, without reflecting properly, gave into Islamophobic forces within and outside the party”.

Continue reading

Sweden: Protests mount in support of Omar Mustafa

Omar Mustafa protestDozens of demonstrators gathered outside Social Democrat headquarters in central Stockholm on Monday night, while others took to the opinion pages of a Swedish daily to protest the ouster of Omar Mustafa over questions about his values.

Nearly 100 people marched outside party headquarters on Sveavägen behind a banner with the text, “Social democracy, yes. No to Islamophobia.”

“It’s Social Democrats protesting against the witch hunt and against all the lies that are being spread about Omar,” Anna Ardin, vice chair of Social Democrat religious group Hjärta – troende socialdemokrater (‘Heart – Social Democrats of faith’), told the TT news agency.

Continue reading

Why do the French hate the hijab?

In light of the backlash that followed the recent court ruling in favour of Fatima Afif’s right to wear a headscarf at work, Marie Dhumieres asks what it is that provokes such hysteria over the hijab among the non-Muslim population of France.

She concludes: “French should maybe take some time to think about why they really care so much, and maybe forget for a second what they believe ‘the hijab’ represents and think about the women under them. For example, about how humiliating it might be for a mother to be banned from accompanying her child’s class on a school trip because her head is covered. Because extremism is indeed dangerous, but it goes both ways.”

Independent,16 April 2013

Leading Muslim forced out of Swedish Social Democrats

Omar MustafaEmbattled Social Democrat Omar Mustafa, who also chairs Sweden’s Islamic Association (Islamiska förbundet), resigned from all his duties with the party on Saturday night, bowing to calls from within the party that he leave the governing board.

“The party leadership believes that having a mandate within the party and within Muslim civil society is incompatible. The party leadership’s view isn’t only regrettable, it’s also a frightening signal to Muslims and other Social Democrats who are people of faith,” he wrote in an open letter.

“I therefore feel that the party leadership doesn’t have confidence in me and have forced me to resign from all my duties in the party.”

Continue reading