Category Archives: Right wing

EDL member nailed Qur’an to pub wall in protest against Islamic centre plan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Graham FrenchA member of a far-right group nailed a copy of the Koran onto a pub which is due to be transformed into a Muslim education centre.

Graham French also wrote “EDL” on the wall of former Melrose Arms in Shotton Colliery – which has been the centre of demonstrations by the English Defence League in the village, after planning permission to change the use of the building was granted.

Since buying the property, local businessman Kaiser Javeed Choudry has been a repeat victim of crime, Peterlee Magistrates’ Court heard. Prosecutor Vicky Wilson said there had been great opposition to the plans and Mr Choudry’s property had been targeted with spray paint and windows had been smashed.

Ms Wilson said on December 14, EDL had been daubed twice in white paint on the building, causing £500 of damage, and an open Koran had been nailed onto a wooden board covering a window. She added: “Police took the Koran for forensic analysis and found several links to the defendant, including a palm print on the page.”

She told the court that information on Facebook showed French, of Dene Crescent, Shotton, is a member of a group called the Shotton Defence League. When French was arrested, he said it was a “revenge attack” after he was followed home from the pub one day by a female wearing a Burka.

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Judge tosses suit against Muslim group over speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thomas More Law CenterALLEGAN, Mich. — A federal judge has dismissed a conservative Christian advocacy group’s lawsuit against a Muslim rights organization over the cancellation of a speech by an anti-Muslim speaker at a southwestern Michigan school.

The Thomas More Law Center sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2012, saying its Michigan director violated the free speech rights of then-state Rep. Dave Agema and others involved in the event at Allegan High School.

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Enfield councillor suspended by Tory Party pending investigation by national decision board over ‘anti-Islamic’ Facebook taunts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chris Joannides Facebook comment

An Enfield councillor has been suspended from the Conservative party following alleged anti-Islamic comments made on a social media site last year. Councillor Chris Joannides has had his membership at the party suspended and he will now be investigated by the Conservative Party’s national board.

Enfield Borough Council’s Tory group withdrew the whip from the Grange Ward representative in February 2013 for alleged anti-Islamic comments posted on his Facebook page. In a joke he posted on his page last year, he compared Muslim burqas to dustbin bags and complained that his job was getting in the way of his social life.

However, earlier this month Mr Joannides was cleared by the Crown Prosecution Service, stating he did not break the law and will not face any criminal charges. Despite there being no legal wrongdoing, he now faces an investigation from the national party’s decision-making body.

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Court upholds UK ban on Geller and Spencer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abhijit PandyaOver at Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller directs us to an article which she describes as a “thoughtful and stunning indictment of the latest tribulation in our legal battle against the de facto sharia ban on Robert Spencer and me in the UK”. The article, entitled “The end of free speech in Britain”, reveals the welcome news that last week a British court rejected Geller and Spencer’s appeal against the home secretary’s decision last June to ban them from entering the UK.

The name of the author, Abhijit Pandya – described by Geller as “one of our British solicitors” – may be familiar. That’s because Pandya has established his own reputation for frothing-at-the-mouth Islamophobia. Back in 2011, when he stood as the UK Independence Party candidate in the Leicester South parliamentary by-election, Pandya wrote a blog post in which he described Islam as “morally flawed and degenerate” and declared his agreement with Geert Wilders’ view of the faith as a “retarded ideology”. He added: “Islamic culture inherently rejects the Western way of life, more specifically the Protestant work ethic that has successfully built the economies of the West.”

The local paper, the Leicester Mercury, published an editorial condemning Pandya’s blog post as “a wildly inflammatory rant which boiled down to a crass and nasty characterisation of Muslims as lazy, intolerant spongers who are a threat to the British way of life. It was not part of a reasoned debate about multiculturalism, but a series of sweeping, unsubstantiated generalisations which demonise the Muslim community.”

So, clearly, Pandya was an entirely appropriate individual to act as Geller and Spencer’s legal representative in the UK.

Alabama board OKs 11 textbooks after complaints they favored Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alabama’s school board voted 5-2 on Friday to recommended 11 social studies textbooks, effectively dismissing complaints from critics who said the texts favored Islam over other religions.

The vote is only a recommendation since local school districts still get to decide which texts their students will read, Department of Education spokeswoman Erica Pippins said. The board was originally scheduled to vote in December, but then decided to review the texts again after receiving complaints. Members of Act for America and the Eagle Forum of Alabama said the books devoted too much content to explaining Islam and not enough on Christianity and Judaism.

“Why is so much text devoted to Islam?” Larry Houck, the founder of Act for America’s Birmingham chapter, wrote in a letter to the school board. He said the books “proselytize for Islam.”

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Coalition calls on Michigan Republican Party to condemn anti-Muslim comments by National Committeeman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dave AgemaA coalition of American Muslim and Arab-American organizations based in Michigan today call on the Michigan Republican Party to condemn recent hostile comments made about American Muslims by Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema.

Agema recently posted on his Facebook account: “Have you ever been to a Muslim hospital? Have you heard a Muslim orchestra? Have you seen a Muslim band march in a parade? Have you witnessed a Muslim charity? Have you seen Muslims shaking hands with a Muslim Girl Scouts (sic)? Have you seen a Muslim Candy striper? Have you ever seen a Muslim do anything that contributes positively to the American way of life?”

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Bendigo, Victoria: group rallies against mosque proposal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stop the Mosque in Bendigo campaign

A new Facebook page aims to stop the construction of a mosque in Bendigo. The Stop the Mosque in Bendigo page has attracted more than 1700 likes since being created on Saturday.

The administrators of the group did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday and made a post saying they did not want to deal with the inevitable backlash. The page said the media was “aligned with the left and will not give a true and correct report”, and the “about” section said it was not a forum for debate.

“It is for those who don’t not want a mosque in Bendigo for their own reasons,” it said. “We live in a democracy and we are exercising our right to say ‘no’ to what happens in our country. Please like, share and ask the City of Greater Bendigo to show some leadership on behalf of our great country.”

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Times discovers non-existent ‘rise in Muslim birthrate’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Times Muslim birthrate headlineToday The Times has a report by its investigations editor Dominic Kennedy titled “Rise in Muslim birthrate as families ‘feel British’”. The article has been copied and pasted by the Telegraph (“Almost a tenth of babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, census figures show”) and by the Mail (“One in ten babies in England is a Muslim: Those practising the religion ‘could soon outnumber actively worshipping Christians'”).

Based on an analysis of the 2011 census figures, the report reveals that over 9% of children aged 0-4 are Muslim, whereas Muslims of all ages make up less than 5% of the population. Yes, it’s yet another of those Islamification of Britain articles.

One of the experts whose response to this news Kennedy quotes is David Coleman. He describes the figures as “startling”, although it is difficult to believe that a man who holds the position of Professor of Demography at the University of Oxford was genuinely surprised by the statistics. Kennedy doesn’t bother to tell his readers that Coleman is also co-founder of the right-wing campaign group Migration Watch and has a record of feeding the anti-immigrant hysteria of the right-wing press.

Even Coleman, however, is unable to deny the fact that birthrate among the UK’s Muslim community is falling – the precise opposite of the false claim made in the headline to Kennedy’s report.

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