Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman has a piece in The Wharf explaining his call for a ban on the EDL’s proposed demonstration in the borough.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Attack on Harlow mosque: Essex UAF call emergency meeting
In the latest attack on muslims since the murder of Lee Rigby in May, a mosque and Islamic centre in Harlow, Essex has been subjected to an attempted arson attack.
Attackers sprayed insulation foam around the doors and windows before setting it alight, fortunately the fire did not spread and no one was injured. Mosque leaders have blamed anti-muslim prejudice for the attack. This latest serious assault on the muslim community comes as the racist EDL prepares to march in Tower Hamlets, East London.
Since May, there has been an upsurge of violent attacks against muslim communities. In June, a Muswell Hill mosque and community centre was burnt to the ground and ‘EDL’ was found painted on the walls. In July, three mosques in the West Midlands were subjected to bomb attacks shortly before the fascists mobilised several hundred in Birmingham. Wherever the EDL go attacks on Muslims and other communities occur.
Essex UAF have called a public meeting this thursday (29/8) in response to the shameful arson attack on Harlow Islamic Centre.
NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizations
The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorism organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.
Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.
The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.
The strategy has allowed the NYPD to send undercover officers into mosques and attempt to plant informants on the boards of mosques and at least one prominent Arab-American group in Brooklyn, whose executive director has worked with city officials, including Bill de Blasio, a front-runner for mayor.
The revelations about the NYPD’s massive spying operations are in documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and part of a new book, “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America.” The book by AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman is based on hundreds of previously unpublished police files and interviews with current and former NYPD, CIA and FBI officials.
Associated Press, 28 August 2013
See also “This is the NYPD’s secret spy cab”, Gawker, 27 August 2013
Update: See “Ray Kelly dismisses a mosque-surveillance report as ‘hyping a book'”, Capital New York, 28 August 2013
Update 2: See also “CAIR-NY, rights groups to seek DOJ probe of NYPD ‘terror’ designation for mosques”, CAIR press release, 28 August 2013
The right’s bigoted crusade against Al Jazeera America
David Sirota exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of US rightwingers’ response to the launch of Al Jazeera America.
Victim of racist attack attempts suicide
Le Parisien reports that Aissetou, the young Muslim women who was attacked by racists in the Parisian suburb of Trappes earlier this month, is in hospital, having tried to commit suicide by throwing herself from a fourth-floor window.
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France states that she had suffered hostile treatment from the police, who challenged her version of events and evidently regarded her as a liar. The CCIF pledges its full support to Aissetou and her family, and calls for an inquiry into the case.
See also Le Point, 27 August 2013
Update: See “French girl attempts suicide after ‘veil attack’”, France 24, 27 August 2013
Eleven EDL supporters arrested during Bolton protest
A protest by the English Defence League in Farnworth passed off without major incident, police said.
There were 12 arrests, 11 from the EDL and one from Unite Against Fascism following the demonstration in Farnworth Park yesterday.
5 bogus reasons used to ban mosques
Kevin Mathews offers some examples of spurious arguments used to justify opposition to mosques.
Norwegian Defence League’s anti-Islam protest flops
The EDL’s sister organisation the Norwegian Defence League held a demonstration at Marinen park in Trondheim yesterday, the purpose of which was (yes, you guessed) “to protest against the Islamisation of Norway”.
Arve Mauseth of the NDL had told Adresseavisen that they were expecting between 30 and 50 participants, including representatives from the Swedish and Polish Defence Leagues.
Alas, it would appear that the struggle against the Muslim hordes is not going well in Norway. Adresseavisen reports that only six people turned up to the NDL protest. They were confronted by 60-70 counter-demonstrators.
Muslim-prayer-row firm to make charity donation
The security firm whose employee told two Muslim women to stop praying in a Dublin park has agreed to make financial donations to children’s charities in the Middle East.
The women were told by the official to end their prayers “in case they break their backs” and sue Dublin City Council. The man, who has been suspended from his job, honked his horn and told the women they needed a permit while they were praying in Griffith Park, Drumcondra two weeks ago.
One of the women, a mum-of-three named Sajida, told the Herald that she fears other Muslims in Ireland have suffered similar “hurtful abuse”.
‘Hijab outcry’ woman in repeat attack
The pregnant woman who was beaten last Friday in Farstavägen in southern Stockholm, reportedly because she wore a headscarf, has been attacked again, according to Stockholm police.
The woman was attacked in Haninge in southern Stockholm by several men on Thursday, according to a report in the local Mitti.se newspaper. “There were several offenders who attacked her with punches. They told her to withdraw her police report,” said Towe Hägg at Stockholm police. According to Hägg, there are no witnesses to the incident. The woman however sustained visible injuries and was taken to hospital. She was able to leave the same day.