Category Archives: Right wing

Tories ‘can afford to ignore Muslim vote’, Lynton Crosby advises

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Cameron and Lynton CrosbyLynton Crosby, the Tories’ election guru, believes that David Cameron has little to gain from adopting a tougher stance against Israel, according to a senior figure.

Tory MPs fighting to hold marginal seats with significant Muslim populations have been among those urging Mr Cameron to issue an outright condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Andrew Stephenson told The Times last week that he had received more than 500 emails from residents in his Pendle constituency, almost all raising concerns about the proportionality of Israel’s response.

The resignation of Baroness Warsi caused despair among some Conservative members of the government. “Cameron has just blown us the election,” one said. “This will lose us nearly all our ethnic support in the north and in seats like Luton.”

Mr Crosby, however, is said to believe the electoral impact of Gaza is overblown. “Lynton says there are hardly any of our marginal seats where the Muslim vote will be a decisive factor,” a senior Tory said yesterday.

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UKIP councillor brands Jaloos ‘call to war’, links to Facebook page proposing ‘cull’ of Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod Butler and Nigel FarageA UKIP councillor has been accused of “scaring people with made-up information” after he branded an Islamic procession in Ilford “a call to war”.

The parade was actually Jaloos, an annual Muslim event to commemorate the martyrdom of the first Shia Imam, Imam Ali. Jaloos is celebrated across the world with similar processions.

Epping Forest councillor Rod Butler, from the UK Independence Party, tweeted a link to a video of the Jaloos and said: “Nice Islamic call to war in Ilford Essex today. Police didn’t bother to intervene, they didn’t understand language.”

Cllr Rod Butler didn’t understand the language either, because according to local Muslim activist Ale Natiq, the ‘call to war’ he heard were actually Panjabi and Urdu hymns recalling the of the holy Imam to “rekindle the spirit of standing up to injustice and rejecting tyranny” – the opposite of a ‘call to war’.

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‘Trojan Horse’ inquiry: Clarke report based on uncorroborated smear, anecdote, hoax, chatroom gossip and neoconservative assumptions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in today’s Guardian:

The new secretary of state for education, Nicky Morgan, makes various pledges following the “Trojan horse” reports on Birmingham schools. Several of her pledges are valuable. The basis for them, however, is unsound. Peter Clarke’s report is not “forensic”, as Nicky Morgan claims (Report, 22 July), but a biased mix of uncorroborated smear, anecdote, hoax and chatroom gossip.

It reflects neoconservative assumptions about the nature of extremism; ignores significant testimony and viewpoints; implies the essential problem in Birmingham is simply the influence of certain individuals; discusses governance but not curriculum; ignores the concerns and perceptions of parents and young people; and is unlikely to bear judicial scrutiny.

The Trojan horse affair has done much damage in Birmingham, both to individuals and to community cohesion. Political leaders have key roles in the urgent process of restoration and support for curriculum renewal. Alas, they will not be much helped by the official reports of Clarke, Ian Kershaw and Ofsted.

They will, though, be helped by the unique strength and goodwill of people in Birmingham itself.

Tim Brighouse, Gus John, Arun Kundnani, Sameena Choudry, Akram Khan-Cheema, Arzu Merali, Robin Richardson, Maurice Irfan Coles, Gill Cressey, Steph Green, Ashfaque Chowdhury, Ibrahim Hewitt, Baljeet Singh Gill, Arshad Ali, S Sayyid, Massoud Shadjareh, Abdool Karim Vakil and Tom Wylie

Torygraph discovers ‘jihad on dogs’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the headline “Commonwealth Games Scottie dogs ‘disrespectful to Muslims’”, the Telegraph reports that the use of Scottish terrier dogs to lead teams around Celtic Park in the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last Wednesday has been criticised by “Malaysian politicians and religious leaders”. (In the Daily Mail‘s version of the story, the critics are elevated to “Malaysian officials”.)

The criticisms quoted were in fact raised by two individuals – one the leader of a minor political party and the other of an extremist movement – and it looks like their objections were not so much to the use of dogs as such but rather to reports that the dog supposed to be leading the Malaysian team refused to move and had to be carried by a team representative.

The Telegraph article helpfully explains: “Many Muslims refuse to have direct contact with dogs, which are considered by some to be ‘unclean’ in Islamic culture. Some overseas Muslim groups have reportedly previously called for a jihad on dogs.”

The article concludes: “A Glasgow 2014 spokesman said: ‘Glasgow 2014 have received no complaints from the Commonwealth Games Associations of the competing nations and territories following the Opening Ceremony’.”

So, another anti-Muslim story concocted out of nothing.

For the background to the “jihad on dogs” nonsense, see here and here.

Fury over ‘Muslim only’ rental advert as landlords fuel ghetto culture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

That was the headline to a report in yesterday’s Daily Star Sunday (the headline has since been amended to remove the reference to “ghetto culture”, although this remains in the article itself).

The inflammatory subheading, which suggests that there is a connection between adverts for rooms to rent and violent extremism, reads “Homes are being illegally advertised for rent to ‘Muslims only’ yards from where soldier Lee Rigby was killed.”

The Star even included photos of the adverts, without bothering to blank out the phone numbers, with the predictable result that the English Defence League has been encouraging its supporters to ring up and harass the Muslim landlords.

See Steve Rose, “An insight into the Daily Star exclusive on ‘Muslim only’ rental ads”, Tell Mama, 28 July 2014

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Ofsted has ‘no plans’ to target inspections at Bradford over Trojan Horse row

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Education bosses have played down claims that Bradford schools are to be the focus of new targeted inspections in the wake of the Trojan Horse row.

There are reports that Whitehall officials are planning to carry out snap inspections at the city amid concerns that the problems found in Birmingham schools could be repeated elsewhere in the country. Claims that Muslim governors were attempting to take over state schools in Birmingham has led to a series of inspections by the Government, the local council and Ofsted.

Ofsted placed five schools in Birmingham in special measures and said a “culture of fear and intimidation has taken grip” in some schools. A separate report by former counter terrorism chief Peter Clarke said there was evidence of an “aggressive Islamist agenda” being pursued by some schools in the city

Now a national newspaper has said that Bradford is to be the focus of new inspections by both Ofsted and officials from the Department for Education (DfE). However Ofsted said it was not aware of any plans to carry out snap inspections in Bradford and Bradford Council’s executive member for schools Coun Ralph Berry said the DfE had not raised any specific concerns about the city.

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Germany’s biggest tabloid attacks Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nicolaus Fest comment piece

Germany’s biggest newspaper, Bild, was forced to climb down over the weekend after a highly critical and controversial comment piece which attacked Islam as a barrier to integration appeared in its Sunday sister paper.

“I don’t believe in God, but at the same time Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism don’t bother me. Only Islam bothers me more and more,” wrote Nicolaus Fest, vice editor-in-chief of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in the editorial published on Sunday.

Fest then laid out why Islam’s “criminality,” “murderous contempt” and “honour killings” did not belong in Germany, in comments which prompted a raft of hostility online against the Axel Springer-owned tabloid. “I’m bothered by the considerably disproportionate criminality of youths from Muslim backgrounds,” wrote Fest. “I’m bothered by Islam’s murderous contempt for women and homosexuals. I’m bothered by forced marriages, ‘justices of the peace,’ ‘honour killings.'”

All this, wrote Fest, was making Islam “a barrier to integration” – something which should be weighed up when assessing claims for asylum and visa applications to Germany. “I don’t need any imported racism and I don’t need anything else Islam stands for,” he concluded.

The short piece, which by Monday morning had been shared over 9,700 times on social media, quickly drew harsh criticism of the paper by politicians calling it racist and calling for the paper to apologize to the estimated 4.3 million Muslims in Germany.

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‘Trojan horse’ scandal wrecked community cohesion – study

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Birmingham Mail jihadist plotA new study into the effects of the “Trojan horse” scandal in Birmingham finds 90 per cent of the city’s Muslims feel community cohesion has been damaged by the way the affair was handled.

It began with an anonymous letter that is widely now believed to have been a hoax. But the Trojan horse allegations, that a group of hard-line Salafis were plotting to impose a strict interpretation of Islam in secular state schools, exploded into one of the biggest scandals Birmingham has ever seen.

There were four separate inquiries, one led by the former head of counter-terrorism in the UK, and dozens of reports in 25 schools. It also led to a political fall-out at the heart of government and contributed to the demotion of the education secretary, Michael Gove.

Every morning as they started their school day, children in the city, and their parents, had to contend with camera crews and journalists waiting outside the gates, filming them and asking for interviews.

Now a study by Birmingham City University, released exclusively to Channel 4 News, has looked at the impact this had on those children. The study, by criminologist Imran Awan, found some worrying evidence that Muslim communities have been left feeling targeted and stigmatised.

“Previous studies have shown that British Muslims felt very comfortable with their identity, they felt well integrated and proud to be British citizens,” Mr Awan told me. “But much of this has been undone by what they feel has been relentless, unfair criticism.”

One mother said: “What’s the point of us trying to integrate, every time we do we are somehow told it’s not good enough, or we’re not getting it right.”

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‘Nazi’ cop Leanne Rissman, aka Sharia Anne, still on beat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sharia AnneA Queensland policewoman who launched a racist internet ­attack against an Aboriginal ­activist under a fake Facebook profile, where she also called for the banning of Muslims in western society, has escaped disciplinary action after undergoing “cultural training”.

Leanne Rissman, who uses the pseudonym “Sharia Anne”, was confirmed by an internal police investigation as being behind ­internet posts and emails in which she calls Aborigines “oxygen thieves” with a “disgusting aversion to work”.

Despite calls for her sacking, Senior Constable Rissman is helping run the overnight shift at the Townsville watchhouse, where a high ­proportion of prisoners are Aboriginal.

West Australian activist Joyce Capewell, whose son and brothers served in the police, was the target of the attack from Constable Rissman in January on her Facebook page Boomerang Justice. Lawyers for Ms Capewell are preparing a legal action alleging racial vilification.

“A person with those sorts of racist attitudes has no right to wear the badge, attitudes like that don’t change with some training,” she said. “How is a ­policewoman like this going to treat Aboriginal people and Aboriginal prisoners?”

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