Category Archives: Scotland

Muslims spread disease in hospitals, Sun claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Some Muslims are undermining the battle to rid Britain’s hospitals of killer infections by refusing to wash their hands when visiting sick relatives. Dispensers containing anti-bacterial gel have been placed outside wards at hospitals all over Britain in a bid to get rid of superbugs like MRSA and PVL. It prevents people bringing in more infections. But some Muslims refuse to use the hand cleansers on religious grounds because they contain alcohol. Health watchdogs are so concerned they intend to meet with NHS bosses in the New Year to try and hammer out a solution.”

Sun, 29 December 2006

(Note also the accompanying “Outrage at ethnic pool” story.)

For a discussion of the Sun article see Rolled Up Trousers, 29 December 2006

Muriel Gray on the dangers of Islamic education

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“To conduct oneself properly as an adherent Muslim, one must obey the Koran and guidance of the prophet Muhammed. With regard to artistic endeavours, he was unambiguous about Allah’s will. It is haram (forbidden) for a Muslim to make a drawn or modelled representation of any animate living thing, as Allah’s creations must not be imitated by the hand of man. Trees, flowers and landscape are fine, say the scholars, but humans, birds and animals are out. It is also haram to make or listen to music for pleasure, or to dance for pleasure or artistic expression. It is haram to view filmed or theatrical images of entertainment or read ‘un-Islamic’ literature.”

Muriel Gray explains why a state-funded Catholic primary school in Glasgow, 90% of whose pupils are from Muslim families, should not be allowed to become a state-funded Muslim school.

Sunday Herald, 22 January 2006

Update:  For Osama Saeed’s response, See Rolled Up Trousers, 23 January 2006

The Muslim Council of Britain and Holocaust Memorial Day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… the anti-semitic cabal running the MCB has announced that as the Holocaust Memorial Trust has not given in to their blackmailing, it will continue its boycott”.

Western Resistance, 5 January 2006

Ah yes, this would be the same “anti-semitic cabal” who, explaining why the MCB would not be supporting Holocaust Memorial Day last year, wrote:

“The Nazi Holocaust was a truly evil and abhorrent crime and we stand together with our fellow British Jews in their sense of pain and anguish. None of us must ever forget how the Holocaust began. We must remember it began with a hatred that dehumanised an entire people, that fostered state brutality, made second class citizens of honest, innocent people because of their religion and ethnic identity. Those who were vilified and seen as a threat could be subjected to group punishment, dispossession and impoverishment while the rest of the world stood idly by, washing its hands of despair and suffering….”

MCB statement, 24 January 2005

For an example of the views of those opposing MCB participation in Holocaust Memorial Day in its present form, see the comments by Osama Saeed of MAB. Rolled Up Trousers, 19 December 2005

Migration Watch chief ‘on brink of racism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Migration WatchImmigration campaigners accused Migration Watch chairman Andrew Green of “verging on the point of racism” yesterday after he called for harsh restrictions on arranged marriages.

The rightwinger said that the minimum age for admission to Britain for marriage should be raised from 18 to 21, with action taken to restrict the number of children born to foreign mothers. Regarding potential spouses who were born in a “particular country” or whose parents were born there, the minimum age for both parties should be raised to 24 if the other suitor came from that country, he claimed.

“We’ve seen the problems that can come from failure to integrate and we’ve got to look at this problem frankly and openly”, declared Mr Green, before trying to link immigration and terrorism. Asked if he was referring to the July 7 terror attacks on London, he replied: “What else has got to happen before we look seriously at the real problems of integration?”

Immigration Advisory Service director of operations Michael Pickett pointed out that Mr Green’s views appear to be incredibly bigoted. “When he refers to a ‘particular country’, he is referring to the Indian subcontinent, not to countries such as Russia and the Ukraine”, Mr Pickett noted.

“To make a connection between the July 7 terrorist attacks on London and arranged marriages is ludicrous”, a claim for which there is “not a single scrap of evidence”, he said. “The reason the bombers were able to go unnoticed is that they were fully integrated. It is a crap argument, once again verging on fantasy.”

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants chief executive Habib Rahman said that it sounded as if Migration Watch was arguing that restrictions should be put on the right of British nationals to marry the person of their choice.

“Migration Watch’s claims do not seem to be underpinned by any systematic evidence”, he added. “For example, migration to Britain takes place from all over the world, so we cannot see any evidence of any special connection between arranged marriages and the rate of births to foreign mothers or the ability to integrate successfully with British society.”

“In the end, migrants’ integration should be measured by the values they hold, not their customs”, insisted Mr Rahman. “Participation in our society and attachment to principles of law-abiding and democratic behaviour should be the measures, not a marriage custom.”

Morning Star, 5 January 2005

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 5 January 2006

Migration Watch’s “findings” are enthusiastically endorsed by the fascists: “According to immigration think tank, MigrationWatch ‘chain migration’, mainly through bringing partners from overseas, produces even higher proportions of such births for communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, thus intensifying the formation of ghettos and setting back integration for a generation.”

BNP news report, 5 January 2006

‘Islamofascist’ backs Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OsamaSaeedI see that Osama Saeed has given favourable coverage on his blog to Peter Tatchell’s New Statesman article defending asylum rights. “He exposes the prejudice and brutality of the asylum system”, Saeed writes, “from the lawyers who don’t care about their refugee clients, to the detention centres where stuff like this is carried out.”

Rolled Up Trousers, 20 December 2005

As a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain in Scotland and the author of a recent article in the Guardian proposing a modernised version of the caliphate, Osama Saeed obviously has some deep disagreements with Peter Tatchell. However, where there is common ground over a progressive political cause – in this case, opposition to racist asylum laws –  he is ready to express his solidarity with a notorious Islamophobe like Tatchell.

Tatchell, by contrast, has never had a good word to say for the Muslim Association of Britain or its members. Indeed, he rejects in principle any bloc with MAB, whether it is over opposing the Iraq war, defending the right of Muslim women to wear the headscarf or backing candidates in elections. Thus he has denounced the Stop the War Coalition for “forging a strategic alliance with right-wing Islamists like … the MAB”, condemned the Mayor of London for “cosying up to Islamic fundamentalists like … the reactionary Muslim Association of Britain” and attacked Respect for being “in alliance with the right-wing, anti-gay Islamist group, the Muslim Association of Britain”.

It is revealing that a leading representative of a Muslim organisation that Tatchell has repeatedly characterised as backward and barbaric can take an admirably balanced and rational approach to the issue of political solidarity – whereas Tatchell, along with many of his fellow self-styled defenders of Enlightenment values, takes refuge in mindless sectarian bigotry.

US paranoia over the Caliphate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The word getting the workout from the nation’s top guns these days is ‘caliphate’ – the term for the seventh-century Islamic empire that spanned the Middle East, spread to Southwest Asia, North Africa and Spain, then ended with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. Specialists on Islam say the word is a mysterious and ominous one for many Americans, and that the administration knows it….

“So now, Mr. Cheney and others warn, Al Qaeda’s ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the caliphate, with calamitous consequences for the United States. As Mr. Cheney put it in Lake Elmo, referring to Osama bin Laden and his followers: ‘They talk about wanting to re-establish what you could refer to as the seventh-century caliphate’ to be ‘governed by Sharia law, the most rigid interpretation of the Koran’. Or as Mr. Rumsfeld put it on Monday: ‘Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East, and which would threaten legitimate governments in Europe, Africa and Asia.’ General Abizaid was dire, too. ‘They will try to re-establish a caliphate throughout the entire Muslim world,’ he told the House Armed Services Committee in September, adding that the caliphate’s goals would include the destruction of Israel….

“A number of scholars and former government officials take strong issue with the administration’s warning about a new caliphate, and compare it to the fear of communism spread during the Cold War. They say that although Al Qaeda’s statements do indeed describe a caliphate as a goal, the administration is exaggerating the magnitude of the threat as it seeks to gain support for its policies in Iraq. In the view of John L. Esposito, an Islamic studies professor at Georgetown University, there is a difference between the ability of small bands of terrorists to commit attacks across the world and achieving global conquest.”

Elizabeth Bumiller in the New York Times, 12 December 2005

‘Boycott Islam’ stickers in Edinburgh

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stickers urging people to “Boycott Islam” have been posted on a shop window, sparking fear in the city’s Asian community.

The Capital’s only Asian councillor, Shami Khan, said it was the latest attack on the Muslim community. He said some businesses run by Muslims had reported a downturn since the London bombings. And the Edinburgh Racial Equality Council said some Asian shopkeepers had received anonymous calls from people accusing them of being terrorists.

Last week, racists targeted Nicolson Square Methodist Church with leaflets containing offensive messages after it forged links with Edinburgh’s Central Mosque next door. Nina Giles, EREC director, said: “It would concern me if it is part of an organised attack. If it is just one person, it is less concerning. We will be reporting it to the police.”

The Scotsman, 23 September 2005

‘Dundee students recruited by terrorist groups’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamic fundamentalists have used Dundee University as a recruiting ground for terrorists, a new study will warn this week. Shamsul Bahri Hussein, a suspect in the Bali bombing, was recruited at the institution, which is one of 30 universities that have been targeted by terror groups, it is claimed.

“Professor Anthony Glees, author of the study, is convinced that Hussein was recruited by militants while studying applied mechanics at Dundee in the 1980s. He is one of eight suspects wanted in connection with the 2002 bombing, which claimed 200 lives.

“‘What is clear is that Shamsul Bahri Hussein was a student at Dundee University’, said Glees, whose study, When Students Turn to Terror, coincides with a planned crackdown on radical student organisations by the government.”

Sunday Times, 18 September 2005

Yes, and that is about the only thing that is clear. Glees’s report states that Hussein “read applied mechanics at Dundee” … and that’s all! The report contains not a shred of evidence that even a single student was recruited to a terrorist group at Dundee University.