Category Archives: Left Wing

South African ‘lefty’ embraces anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Women24, which bills itself as South Africa’s largest online women’s community, has posted a piece by a Cape Town writer named Chris McEvoy (not a woman, judging by appearances) entitled “I’m Islamophobic”.

“And no, I’m not being ironic”, he assures his followers on Twitter. Anyone who follows McEvoy’s tweets would probably have guessed that already.

Chris McEvoy tweet

Given recent events in their country, you might have thought white South Africans would hesitate before publishing this sort of ignorant racist drivel. But apparently not.

Parti Quebecois would bar hijab from civil service with secularism charter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pauline MaroisPauline Marois is promising to end Quebec’s reasonable accommodation debate if she is elected premier on Sept. 4.

With a new Quebec Charter of Secularism, a Parti Quebecois government would seek to strike a balance between protecting the province’s values and allowing for different cultures to interact.

Under the proposed charter, civil servants would be barred from wearing any religious symbols, including the controversial wear of the hijab. The law would also prohibit citizens from refusing to be served by a member of the opposite sex.

“In Quebec, the state will be neutral. That is absolutely important. Next, the equality between men and women is a value that is not negotiable,” said Marois, at a campaign stop in Trois-Riveries.

Despite the rhetoric, the party leader said that Quebec’s cultural symbols would not be impacted, including Christmas trees and the crucifix that has hung in the National Assembly since 1936. “We’re not denying our past,” said Marois.

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French Muslims protest in Gennevilliers against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D4ZQ9O3JvOQ

Press TV reports from a demonstration in Gennevilliers against the sacking (since withdrawn) of four Muslims workers at a summer camp run by the local authority. They were dismissed on the grounds that their fasting for Ramadan supposedly made them unfit to carry out their duties and they represented a threat to the safety of the young people they were supervising.

Gennevilliers has a Communist mayor, Jacques Bourgoin, who initially supported the sackings, and his position was strongly supported by the far-right Front National who stated: “Those who oppose this wise decision are making a mockery of the principles of safety and secularism.”

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French council sacks summer camp workers for observing Ramadan fast

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jacques BourgoinFrance’s main Muslim body yesterday angrily condemned a town council’s decision to sack four summer camp workers for fasting during Ramadan as “arbitrary and discriminatory.”

The four workers, who had been employed temporarily by the town of Gennevilliers in the Paris suburbs to help run a sports camp in southwestern France, were dismissed on July 20, the first day of Ramadan, after being told they were endangering children’s safety by not eating or drinking between dawn and dusk.

They are now planning to contest their dismissal through France’s labour courts and the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) said Tuesday it was considering suing Gennevilliers council for discrimination.

In a statement, the Communist mayor of Gennevilliers [Jacques Bourgoin, pictured] defended the decision to suspend the employees on health and safety grounds after an official who visited the camp noticed that they were not eating or drinking at lunchtime.

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Another blow for the anti-Warsi witch-hunters – she is cleared over parliamentary expenses allegations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conservative Party Annual Conference BeginsThe Conservative Party says its co-chairman Baroness Warsi has been cleared of allegations she wrongly claimed Parliamentary expenses.

Baroness Warsi’s claims were probed by the Lord Commissioner for Standards. It was alleged that in 2008 she claimed overnight expenses for staying in London while living rent-free.

Last month she was cleared of a breach of the ministerial code after being accompanied by a business associate on an official visit to Pakistan.

In a statement, Lady Warsi said she was “delighted” to draw a line under the matter.

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The French minister for women has let down Muslim voters

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After the election of a Socialist government, and the appointment of a Muslim of North African heritage – Najat Vallaud-Belkacem – as minister for women’s rights, France’s Muslim community might have hoped for a reversal of Nicolas Sarkozy’s policy of pandering to Islamophobia, and in particular an overturn of the notorious “burqa ban”. So far they have been disappointed, writes Nabila Ramdani.

Comment is Free, 16 July 2012

Labour lifts Lord Ahmed’s suspension

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lord Ahmed at Palestine demoA peer suspended by the Labour Party for allegedly offering a £10m bounty on the head of US President Barack Obama has had the suspension lifted.

Lord Ahmed, who denied the accusations published in a Pakistani newspaper the Express Tribune, thanked Chief Whip Lord Bassam for a “fair” investigation. Lord Ahmed said he was “delighted” the suspension had been lifted as he had been a member of the Labour Party for 34 years.

He told BBC Asian Network said his colleagues in the Lords had been “very sympathetic” while the suspension was in place. The story was “lies” and he said he was considering taking legal action against the Express Tribune newspaper, he added.

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Case against Warsi’s Pakistan trip collapses – but Cameron may still remove her as Tory party chairman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The vicious campaign against Tory Party co-chairman Sayeeda Warsi, led by the Sunday Telegraph and backed by the Labour Party (see here, here and here), has suffered a setback.

The BBC reports that Warsi has been cleared of any serious breach of the ministerial code over an official trip to Pakistan. The prime minister’s adviser Sir Alex Allan found she had committed only a “minor” breach for failing to declare she had been accompanied on the trip by her business partner Abid Hussain, with whom she had set up a restaurant supply company called Rupert’s Recipes.

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Torygraph exposes Baroness Warsi’s (non-existent) ‘new links to radicals’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sunday Telegraph continues to pursue the Tory right’s campaign against Sayeeda Warsi, who was recently referred to Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code, after she accepted that she had committed the (very minor) offence of forgetting to declare a business relationship with her husband’s cousin Abid Hussain when he accompanied her on a visit to Pakistan.

According to the Telegraph‘s investigations editor Jason Lewis, “there were calls last week for the inquiry, ordered by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, to be widened after Mr Hussain admitted that he had been involved in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist party that the Conservatives had pledged to ban”. Who the people making these calls might be, Lewis doesn’t tell us. Perhaps this is because the “calls” were more in the nature of malicious whispers, which is how some Tory rightwingers have been attempting to undermine Warsi ever since she was appointed party co-chairman.

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Hollande says he’ll retain French veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

France’s socialist presidential candidate says that, if elected, he won’t seek to overturn a law banning face-covering Muslim veils enacted by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives.

François Hollande, who leads Sarkozy in all polls, and most other Socialists abstained from the 2010 vote in the National Assembly to ban mesh-screen burqas and niqabs – which have slits for the eyes.

On RTL radio Friday, Hollande said he would keep the ban, but “have it applied in the best way.” He did not elaborate.

Controversy surrounded the law that took effect last year. Muslim leaders say it unfairly stigmatizes Muslims. Supporters insist it helps defend France’s secular state. Only a tiny number of women wear the veils.

The presidential election runoff is May 6.

Associated Press, 27 April 2012