Category Archives: Secular

Femen leader asks what can be more stupid than Ramadan, what can be uglier than Islam?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inna Shevchenko anti-Islam tweet

Inna Shevchenko, the leader of topless feminist group Femen and one of the inspirations for the new stamp depicting Marianne, the feminine symbol of France, has created a mini-storm with a tweet slamming Ramadan and Islam in general.

The leader of feminist activist group Femen, Inna Shevchenko, on Tuesday sparked an online controversy after posting an anti-Islam message to her Twitter account.

Shevchenko is one of the inspirations for France’s new official stamp depicting Marianne, the feminine symbol of the French Republic – a fact that makes the accusations of Islamophobia she is currently facing even more inopportune.

The “tweet” in question, published on July 9, reads: “What can be more stupid than Ramadan? What can be more uglier then this religion?” Shevchenko’s tweet has since been deleted – “by Mohamed or by mistake, that is the same”, the feminist posted to her Twitter account.

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National Secular Society ‘comedian’ embraces EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat Condell Godless and FreeI haven’t covered the online activities of the National Secular Society’s favourite “comedian” Pat Condell recently.

Partly that’s because I can’t stand the sight of his smug, sneering face staring out of the screen at me, but also because I get the impression that even the NSS’s enthusiasm for Condell has cooled somewhat in the face of the increasingly vile racist views he has promoted in his YouTube monologues. (Not that this has prevented another prominent fan, Richard Dawkins, from continuing to advertise compilations of Condell’s videos on his website.)

However, Condell’s latest video rant is worthy of note because, having previously announced his backing for the anti-immigration UK Independence Party, he has now gone one step further and come out in support of the English Defence League – to the delirious approval of the EDL itself, needless to say.

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Thug jailed for attack on Asian taxi driver he blamed for Lee Rigby murder

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A golfer who carried out a racially aggravated attack on an Asian taxi driver after wrongly linking him to the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby was jailed for seven months.

Drunk Kevin Dunne, 57, was on a golfing holiday with friends when the attack on Shabir Ahmed happened after the driver dropped them at Newport’s five-star Celtic Manor Resort around 12.15am on May 26.

Newport Crown Court heard Dunne said: “You know what happened last week in London? It was one of your brothers who done it. Where are you from?”

Mr Ahmed ignored the comment and asked for his £12 fare but Dunne gave him a handful of change and a 20 pence tip, saying: “That’s all you’re having. **** off out of here, you ******* Paki.”

Dunne then head butted him and punched him twice in the face, which loosened a tooth.

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Another Muslim-bashing story from the Mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Teachers ‘denied schoolboy, 10, water on the hottest day of the year to avoid upsetting Muslim pupils during Ramadan'” – that’s the headline to a report in yesterday’s Daily Mail. The story, which is of course just the latest episode in the “Islamisation of the West” narrative promoted by the right-wing press, was also taken up by the Daily Express (“Teachers deny water to schoolboy, 10, on the hottest day of the year”).

Coverage was not restricted to right-wing newspapers. The story appeared in the Daily Mirror (“Mum claims son was REFUSED water at school in heatwave as it was ‘unfair’ on fasting Muslim classmates”) and also featured in the National Secular Society‘s daily media round-up (“Schoolboy forced to observe Ramadan fast – even though he isn’t a Muslim”).

It provoked the usual frothing at the mouth from the likes of Pamela Geller (“This speaks to the supremacism of Islam”) and Robert Spencer (“Easy to see which group is in charge in Britain”), along with the British National Party (“What kind of loony left teacher can actually think it is right to deny a child a drink of water on one of the hottest days of the year. She can only face the sack”).

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Russia’s Supreme Court upholds ban on Muslim headwear in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A branch of Russia’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a group of Muslims for the right of schoolgirls to wear traditional religious attire, specifically the hijab, in classrooms.

The appeal was made by a group of citizens of Muslim faith from southern Russia’s Stavropol Region. They complained that a decree by the local administration ordering all schoolchildren to appear in classes only in regular secular clothes, which came into force in January this year, infringes their freedom of faith as guaranteed by the constitution.

The controversy erupted when a group of schoolgirls was barred from classes for two weeks when they insisted on wearing hijabs. The girls then began attending to a local religious school, the parents saying their daughters would receive the mandatory universal secondary education at home. However the administration ruled that a religious school cannot replace a secular one.

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Islam and democracy are ‘absolutely not compatible’, French right-wing politician claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Collectif contre l’Islamophobe en France has condemned comments by UMP deputy mayor of Nice and former government minister, Christian Estrosi.

Asked whether he agreed with prime minister François Hollande’s statement during a visit to Tunisia that Islam and democracy are compatible, Estrosi replied: “Absolutely not! We can’t claim adherence to secularism everywhere and at the same time say that Islam and democracy are perfectly compatible.”

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Joyce Carol Oates sparks Twitter storm over Egypt remarks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Author Joyce Carol Oates has sparked a social media ruckus with a series of tweets linking rape culture to Islam, drawing a stream of responses from other writers and users of the site.

Oates is not the first high-profile writer to stumble into the political arena, but her choice of timing, topic and media were particularly incendiary.

Oates’s 140-word political tweet-bombs began by remarking: “Something dispiriting about ‘Brotherhood’ political parties – wonder what it is.”

And drove on with “Where 99.3% of women report having been sexually harassed & rape is epidemic – Egypt – natural to inquire: what’s the predominant religion?”

Guardian, 8 July 2013

Anti-Muslim acts on rise in France: CCIF annual report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CCIF rapport annuel 2013The Committee against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) says there has been a steady rise in anti-Muslim acts in France in recent years. The CCIF said in its annual report on Wednesday that the number of anti-Muslim acts jumped to 469 cases in 2012 from 298 in 2011, and 188 in 2010.

The report also denounced France’s civil service as “one of the principal vectors of Islamophobia” as it said bureaucrats often over-interpreted official secularist policies to incorrectly reject to serve Muslim women who wear Islamic headscarves.

According to the law, civil servants and girls who attend state schools are banned from wearing headscarves, but adults using a public service are not. However, some French officials refuse to conduct a civil wedding or issue documents if the woman concerned covers her hair, the report said.

The CCIF report added that anti-Muslim acts have increasingly targeted people, especially women, adding that assaults against mosques had approximately doubled in 2012 compared with the year before.

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