Ayaan Hirsi Ali lost an honorary degree from Brandeis for articulating the same twisted thinking as Dick Cheney, argues Eric Levitz.
Category Archives: Right wing
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Neither a critic of Islam, nor a champion of women’s rights
Nathan Lean takes on Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Athens mayoral candidates clash over mosque plans
On Thursday, New Democracy‘s candidate for Athens mayor, Aris Spiliotopoulos, was accused of toeing his party’s ultra-nationalist line by Gavriil Sakellaridis, main opposition party Syriza’s runner for the same position.
Sakellaridis made a clear reference to Laos, which used to be the most right-wing party in Greek Parliament until the sudden emergence of Golden Dawn, declaring that “Spiliotopoulos is running on a LAOS 2012 platform”.
Spiliotopoulos, a former minister of education and tourism, had called for a referendum in Athens on plans to construct a mosque in the city, in an interview on the Greek broadcaster Skai TV on Thursday [pictured]. He strongly opposed the idea, claiming that the capital does not need “another pole for illegal immigration”.
Franklin Graham: Muslims who ‘want to practice Sharia law’ should ‘go back where you came from’
“We should be afraid of sharia law” in America, and Muslims here who want to practice sharia should go back to where they came from, “to those nations that recognize sharia law,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
In a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer, Graham was asked, “Some say you demonize Islam, and Christians in this country have opposed building a mosque or are worried about Sharia law. Isn’t it –”
Graham, who oversees the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, said, “We should be afraid of Sharia law. We should be absolutely afraid of it. No question about it, because there’s no tolerance in Sharia law. It persecutes those that do not believe in Islam.”
“And I would say to Muslims in this country, if they want to practice Sharia law, go back to where you came from, to those nations that recognize sharia law,” said Graham. “But we have our own laws here.”
Anti-Muslim suspicion in Britain has a whiff of McCarthyism about it
Allegations of an Islamic takeover plot in Birmingham schools aren’t justified by the evidence – and the government response is way out of proportion, argues Salma Yaqoob.
See also “Birmingham MP criticises Gove over ‘Islamist school plot’ investigation”, Guardian, 16 April 2014
Police find no evidence of criminality by Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman
A police investigation into allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement by the mayor of a London council has found “no credible evidence of criminality”.
Lutfur Rahman, elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, east London, was accused by the BBC’s Panorama of more than doubling public funding to Bangladeshi and Somali groups from £1.5m to £3.6m in the face of recommendations from council officers. He denied the allegations, saying they had been motivated by racism and Islamophobia.
The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, sent inspectors into the borough to investigate Rahman’s activities, but Metropolitan police officers who reviewed the allegations found no evidence of fraud or other offences.
He will face no further action from police “at this stage”, but the force said it was appropriate for outside auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to continue their financial review of the council.
A Scotland Yard statement said: “On Friday 4 April the Metropolitan Police Service received three files of material from the Department for Communities and Local Government relating to the London borough of Tower Hamlets. These comprised material referred to the DCLG by a member of the public and by the BBC Panorama programme.
“The files have been reviewed by a team of officers over the past six days. In addition, officers have liaised with PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are conducting a full and wide-ranging audit of financial matters at the London borough of Tower Hamlets.
“There is no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed at this stage. Therefore the MPS will not be investigating at this point in time and believe that it is appropriate for the material to be reviewed further by PwC and DCLG. We will continue to liaise with them should their audit uncover any evidence of criminality.”
PwC has been asked to report back to Pickles by 30 June. Tower Hamlets council, which says it has seen no evidence that its processes have been run inappropriately, welcomed the police statement.
More tabloid hysteria
Steven Rose responds to Peter Hill’s Daily Express article “Why does Britain feel so obliged to accommodate for minorities?” Tell Mama, 13 April 2014
Brandeis withdraws honorary degree for notorious Islamophobe Ayaan Hirsi Ali
A university has reversed a decision to grant an honorary degree to an advocate for Muslim women who has made comments critical of Islam. Brandeis University said in a statement that Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali would no longer receive the honorary degree, which it had planned to award her at the May 18 commencement.
Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason magazine in which she said of the religion: “Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars.”
Brandeis, outside Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, said it was not aware of Ali’s statements earlier.
David Cameron’s religious adviser is descended from founders of the ‘terrorist’ Muslim Brotherhood
That’s the headline to a report in the Daily Mail. The adviser with the supposed terrorist links is none other than Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, who the Mail’s reporter Martin Beckford indignantly informs his readers “is one of 14 members of the Foreign Office’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, chaired by Tory peer Baroness Warsi”.
Any informed commentator would have told the Mail that Professor Ramadan is the epitome of a liberal and progressive interpretation of Islam, and has no organisational or even ideological links to the Muslim Brotherhood, never mind to terrorism. So, instead, Beckford turned to Douglas Murray, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, who provided him with a predictably ignorant and scaremongering quote: “David Cameron should be deeply embarrassed by this. Tariq Ramadan is extremely loyal to his father and grandfather and he does not, by any means, speak out against the Muslim Brotherhood.”
U.S. Islamophobes stand by Wilders as his own party members defect
Dutch politician Geert Wilders has once again become the subject of controversy after he led supporters in an anti-Moroccan chant during a campaign rally last month. Despite the mass condemnation he has received for the remarks, Wilders’ anti-Muslim counterparts in the United States are standing by his draconian approach to immigration.