Category Archives: Right wing

‘Moderate Muslim’ wants family fun day cancelled

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the headline “EDL to target Legoland after Muslim HATE preacher hires park for day out”, the Daily Star Sunday has thrown its weight behind the campaign to pressurise Legoland Windsor into cancelling a booking by the Muslim Research and Development Foundation, who have hired the theme park for a family fun day on 9 March. According to the Star, Legoland’s decision to “has outraged ­moderate Muslims”.

Now, which “moderate Muslim” do you suppose would be so vicious and embittered as to want to deprive Muslim children of a harmless day out at Legoland? No prizes for guessing that it’s Taj Hargey. He tells the Star: “I would ask Legoland that if they are happy to let his group hire the park, then would they be happy to let the BNP and other extremist far-right groups hold their family fun day there? Both groups spread hatred and intolerance.”

An English Defence League supporter applauds the role that Hargey is playing: “Legoland can cancel the booking without losing face by saying that they have considered the opinion of sensible Muslims like Dr Hargey and thus etc etc.”

US religious freedom rep funded by Islamophobes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, repeated its request to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to investigate one of its own members, this time for being funded by the same group that backs a notorious Islamophobe.

Earlier this year, CAIR asked for an investigation of USCIRF Vice Chair Zuhdi Jasser for apparently seeking to deny religious rights to Muslim military personnel. In a letter sent to USCIRF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George, Corey Saylor, director of CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia, wrote in part:

“We are writing today to expand upon the concerns regarding Dr. Zuhdi Jasser that were expressed on our letter to you dated January 24, 2014. Additional information has come to light regarding the financial dependence of Dr. Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) on groups known for promoting Islamophobia in the United States.

“Tax filings for the New York-based Abstraction Fund reveal that between 2010 and 2012, Jasser’s organization accepted $45,000 in grants and contributions. In 2012, 82 percent of the Fund’s total $1,982,930 contributions and grants went to groups known for their active role in spreading anti-Islam prejudice.”

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Bloodworth embraces the HJS

Posted on by Bob Pitt

James BloodworthLess than a year ago James Bloodworth, the editor of Left Foot Forward (“a political blog for progressives”), wrote a hard-hitting article for Comment is Free entitled “Labour should cut its ties with the illiberal Henry Jackson Society”.

Taking his cue from a Left Foot Forward article by Marko Attila Hoare, with the even more forthright title “Labour’s shameful links with the anti-immigration right”, Bloodworth wanted to know why 11 Labour MPs were prepared to sit on the advisory council of an organisation that had as an associate director an individual like Douglas Murray who is notorious for his “anti-Muslim and anti-immigration views”. Bloodworth complained that he had written to the MPs to raise his concerns about the HJS but had received no response.

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Cambridge News discovers ancient anti-mosque petition

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than 1,400 people have signed a petition against a planned £17.5 million Cambridge mosque in another attack by the English Defence League (EDL). The latest bid to stop the construction of the mosque in Mill Road comes after a protest group was criticised for a legal application to block it being built in which they claimed it could be “a front for terrorism”.

Now an online petition launched by a Cambridge resident and EDL supporter named ‘Phillip Cufc Jackson’ has gathered 1,498 signatures on US based website causes.com. The ‘Stop construction of mosque on Mill Road, Cambridge’ petition claims it was launched “because us Cambridge people do not want this super mosque built on our doorstep and we have been lied to on the actual amount of opposition to this project”.

Cambridge News, 13 February 2014

It is difficult to see how this qualifies as news. It is quite misleading to state that the anti-mosque petition is the “latest bid to stop the construction of the mosque in Mill Road” and “comes after” Gash and Webra’s legal challenge. The petition was launched by Jackson – a supporter of the EDL and member of the East Anglian Patriots – back in August 2012, with a target of 3,000 signatures. Over the course of 18 months it has attracted just over half that number, and judging by the dates of the accompanying comments had become pretty well moribund, though the report in the Cambridge News will now no doubt give it a bit of a boost.

Update:  See the petition welcoming the mosque which has been signed by Richard Howitt MEP along with local councillors, trade unionists, community groups and others.

EDL resists Islamification of Legoland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FamilyFunDay Legoland adThe past few days have seen a frothing-at-the-mouth far-right campaign against a decision by Legoland Windsor to allow a Muslim organisation to hire the theme park for a family day out.

You may think you’ve heard this before, and you would be right. This is essentially a rerun of the campaign last year against an event at Chessington World of Adventures held by the same Muslim group, and in both cases the source of the campaign was a post on an extremist anti-Muslim website called Kafir Crusaders.

In the course of this latest outbreak of anti-Muslim hysteria the Legoland Windsor Facebook page has been assailed by angry bigots from the English Defence League and Casuals United, to the extent that Legoland evidently became tired of deleting abusive comments and took the page down. Opponents of the Family Fun Day have set up a Boycott Legoland Windsor Facebook page and are planning to demonstrate outside the park and harass the families who are attending the event. The EDL Facebook page has featured the usual calls for the venue to be blown up with all the people in it.

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Swiss voters back limit on immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Egerkingen Committee anti-Muslim posterVoters in Switzerland narrowly backed a proposal to limit immigration Sunday, in a blow for the government after it had warned that the measure could harm the Swiss economy and relations with the European Union.

The decision follows a successful last-minute campaign by nationalist groups that stoked fears of overpopulation and rising numbers of Muslims in the Alpine nation. Opinion polls before the vote put opponents of the plan in the lead, but as ballot day neared the gap began to close.

Swiss public television SRF reported that some 50.3 percent of voters eventually backed the proposal to introduce quotas for all types of immigrants. About 49.7 percent voted against it, a difference of fewer than 30,000 votes. Support was particularly strong in rural areas, while cities such as Basel, Geneva and Zurich rejected the proposal.

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Quebec’s politicians present spineless spectacle over ‘charter of values’ debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Liberal leader Philippe Couillard migrated from saying the Charter was unnecessary and would pass “over my dead body” all the way to stipulating what “must be included in the Charter” in order to “affirm [the] values of the host society.” (For some reason this includes a ban on public sector workers wearing niqabs and burkas because they cover the face, and chadors despite the fact they don’t.) Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault’s “moderate” compromise proposal would still ban teachers from wearing religious symbols. The hard-left Québec Solidaire is the acme of tolerance, drawing the line on such restrictions at judges and police officers — but it only has two MNAs and 8% support in the latest Léger Marketing poll, published Jan. 20. (After QS MNA Amir Khadir was recently photographed in discussion with Muslims wearing hijabs, the pro-labour, pro-sovereignty, pro-charter group SPQ Libre stridently accused him of cuddling up to fundamentalists.)

Chris Selley argues that even if the Parti Québécois gets its way and manages to impose the so-called secularism charter it may well face defiance over the actual implementation of the proposed bans. In the meantime, rival political parties of left and right have demonstrated a spineless failure to take a stand against the PQ on this issue.

National Post, 7 February 2014

Ukip MEP who supported Muslim code of conduct urged halal slaughter ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gerard Batten website

A Ukip MEP who is under fire over his remarks about Islam also suggested banning halal and kosher slaughter of animals and outlawing the legal recognition of Islamic banking.

In 2011 Gerard Batten was the author of a four-page paper entitled “Confidential draft – Dismantling Multiculturalism”, which was billed as a policy discussion document with “suggested policies that could be adopted by political parties and governments”. It was sent to members of Christian Concern, a group that believes that abortion should be illegal and homosexuality is a sin. Batten said he held a meeting with them and sent a document to some of their members.

The paper claims that multiculturalism has failed and offers a doom-laden warning about the threat of radical Muslims. “Islamic fundamentalism is the cuckoo in the western multicultural nest. We can either address it now or be destroyed by it in the course of time,” he wrote.

A future government should also ban the religious slaughter of animals, he suggests. “Repeal the act of parliament that gives exception for ritual slaughter for religious reasons. These are outmoded and barbaric practices that have no place in the 21st century or in the light of humane animal welfare policies,” he wrote. Batten also suggested that Ukip might consider dropping any laws that recognise Islamic banking: “Repeal the Act (???) that gives official recognition to Islamic banking.” There are no references to Islamic finance in UK legislation, according to the Treasury.

Guardian, 5 February 2014

Tory MP says Ukip politician’s call for Muslim code of conduct is frightening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Halfon CFI & HJSGerard Batten, the senior Ukip politician who called for Muslims to sign a code of conduct, has been accused of taking an “unbelievably sinister” position that is comparable to asking members of the faith to wear a yellow star.

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, called on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to sack Batten for his comments, after it emerged the Ukip MEP had helped write a “charter of Muslim understanding”. The document calls on Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and accepting the need to modify the Qur’an.

Halfon, who is Jewish and has spoken out repeatedly against Islamic extremism, told the Guardian he considered Batten’s views “unbelievably sinister” and “frightening”. He tweeted: “Big difference btwn lawful Muslims & extreme Islamists. UKIP MEP Batten’s statement a 1st step to wearing a Yellow Star.”

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Right-wing blogger ‘exposes’ sinister Muslim immigration plot in Coke’s Super Bowl ad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Coca Cola Super Bowl adCoca Cola’s one-minute, multilingual Super Bowl ad was apparently a lot of things to many people. To some, it was an insult to the United States and the English language, while to others it was a tribute to American diversity or a highly effective marketing tool.

But to former Hollywood agent Pat Dollard, the ad “exposed” a “stealth” appeal for immigration amnesty by its shadowy Muslim chief executive officer. “Coca Cola has been on a major amnesty push for at least a year in the hopes that it can obtain cheap labor,” Dollard wrote on his self-titled blog. “And because its CEO Muhtar Kent is a Muslim who was raised in places like Iran and Indonesia, perhaps for even more sinister reasons.”

The stage thus set, the documentary filmmaker and Breitbart correspondent argues that the ad was “designed to influence public opinion.” Perhaps recognizing that every paid and unpaid advertisement – whether they air on the most-watched TV program in history or overnight on some obscure local channel – is intended to influence the public, Dollard attempts to tie Coke’s ad into a broader conspiracy.

“Muhtar is engaging in the amnesty war just like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is,” Dollard warns. “And I’d be curious to know just how much of his salary and Coke’s profits go to Muslim ‘charities’ that are really fronts for terrorist organizations, as most Muslim ‘charities’ are.”

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