Purna Sen has today been selected as the Labour candidate to stand against Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion.
She was chosen ahead of National Secular Society council member Anne Marie Waters who spoke out against Sharia law.
Ms Sen, who lives in Brighton, was born in India and came to Britain when she was two. Brighton Pavilion is one of Labour’s target seats for the General Election in 2015.
San Diego police had a bomb squad standing by on Wednesday as they searched the Clairemont apartment of a man suspected of making death threats at a nearby mosque during Ramadan.
No explosives or weapons were found in Larry Michael Rodgers’ apartment on Belden Street near Marlest Driver, police Capt. Brian Ahearn said.
Rodgers allegedly walked into the Islamic Center of San Diego in Clairemont early Monday morning, caused a disruption, then walked out saying, “I’m going to kill all of you,” Ahearn said.
Two men in the congregation followed him and called police, and officers caught up to him on Convoy Street. Rodgers was arrested on suspicion of making terrorist threats. He remained in jail on $50,000 in bail, and was to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.
Ahearn said investigators were concerned that Rodgers may have been behind a series of verbal bomb threats made against the Islamic School of San Diego, next to the mosque, in May. One threat left on the school’s answering machine said, in part, “I’m going to throw a bomb at your (expletive) school.”
Oppose EDL in Birmingham
The English Defence League (EDL) has announced its intention to demonstrate in Birmingham this Saturday 20 July. This follows a series of attacks on Mosques as racists seek to escalate Islamophobia and intimidation of Muslims, following the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May.
Recently, the Kanz-ul-Iman Muslim Welfare Association Central Jamia Mosque in Tipton was attacked with a nail bomb, leading the Police to consider it a terrorist attack. Last month the Jinnah Road Mosque in Redditch was broken into and sprayed with a swastika, “EDL”, “NF”, “KKK”, and other racist graffiti, and a homemade bomb exploded outside the Aisha Mosque and Islamic Centre in Walsall.
The EDL’s demonstrations often descend into violence and intimidation of Muslims and other ethnic minority groups and disrupt otherwise peaceful communities. We have been campaigning in Birmingham to build support for a united community response against the EDL.
We want a peaceful counter demonstration on the day to show that Birmingham is a united, multicultural and peaceful community that does not want racist and fascist thugs intimidating or attacking Muslims or any other minority group in our city. We urge all who are concerned to reject the EDL’s attempt to divide our community and stand with us.
UNITE AGAINST EDL AND CELEBRATE MULTI-CULTURAL BIRMINGHAM
Sat 20 July, 12pm
Golden Boys statue, Outside the House of Sport, Broad Street, Birmingham
A city centre mosque has finally opened its doors – after years of delays and an attempt to blow it up. The building, in Regent Road, Hanley, is now being used for prayers ahead of its official completion.
Plans for the Islamic centre were first tabled back in 2000, but the project sparked controversy after it emerged Stoke-on-Trent City Council had agreed to lease the site for a £1 peppercorn rent. The mosque suffered a further setback after a plot to blow up the building caused more than £50,000 of damage.
But the £2 million mosque is now nearly finished and is expected to be officially opened next month. In the meantime it has been opened for prayers for the holy month of Ramadan.
AFP reports that the prosecutor in Reims said today that he is investigating three separate complaints of assaults and insults against Muslim women.
The prosecutor told AFP that a preliminary investigation had been opened after a veiled young woman was assaulted on Friday while crossing a park in the centre of Reims by a man who was “probably drunk”. The victim was hit in the face and wounded with a sharp object by her attacker, who had previously attempted to snatch her headscarf, according to her testimony.
The prosecutor is investigating two further complaints filed at the Reims police headquarters on Sunday: one for physical assault – a blow with an elbow – and racist insults against a woman wearing a headscarf that took place on Saturday, and another for death threats and insults towards two other veiled women, dating back to July 2.
“Within two weeks there have been three Islamophobic attacks in Reims, the last of which was a very violent one against a young woman of 18, and other cities are experiencing the same upsurge”, Abdallah Zekri, president of the national Observatory against Islamophobic Acts, a component of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, told AFP. He denounced the “repeated attacks against Muslims in France” .
Yesterday the EDL’s sister organisation, the Swedish Defence League, held a protest in Göteborg under the slogan “Stop Muslim immigration”. SDL chairman Kamil Ryba explained that “Islam’s disregard for human life is so evil that it is our duty to protect and fight against this evil”.
Although it was billed as a national demonstration, Göteborgs-Posten reports that only about a dozen people turned up for the event. The SDL’s own photo of the event confirms the derisory turnout.
On 14 September Australians will vote in a referendum on whether local government should be formally recognised in the federal constitution. In the Sunday Mail Terry Sweetman reports that some opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment are claiming that a “yes” vote will end in Sharia law.
“By Local Government areas being recognised, Sharia law can then be demanded in the local area, based on the percentage of Muslim people in that local area,” they declare. Apparently this is “exactly how the Muslims petitioned Sharia law to be recognised in the United Kingdom”.
Members of the English Defence League have been strongly condemned for harassment and threats of violence targeted at a young reporter.
Sarah Marshall, a trainee reporter on the Doncaster Free Press, was threatened on the Casuals United website, over an incident at an EDL rally in Sheffield six weeks ago. The website has a picture of her and the threat: “If Miss Marshall is not dealt with we will be outside Doncaster Free Press until she is.” The site gave contact details of the Doncaster Free Press.
Manic Street Preachers are taking legal action against the English Defence League for using their song ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ to promote an upcoming demonstration in Birmingham.
Ironically, the song – taken from the band’s 1998 album ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ – took its name from an anti-fascist slogan used during the Spanish Civil War and has now been used by the far-right group in a video about one of their demos. The song famously features the lyric: “So if I can shoot rabbits/Then I can shoot fascists”.
Michael Wongsam, the Chair of West Midlands Unite Against Fascism said in a statement: “We are appalled to discover that the racist and fascist English Defence League has used the anti-fascist song ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ by the band the Manic Street Preachers…This song takes its title from an anti-fascist slogan used during the Spanish Civil War where anti-racists and anti-fascists from all over Europe tried to stop Franco’s fascists from taking over the country.”
