Category Archives: Secular

Peter Tatchell joins campaign to suppress Hizb ut-Tahrir’s right to free speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joel_TitusPeter Tatchell has announced that he will be joining a demonstration against Hizb ut-Tahrir’s International Khilafah Conference at the Water Lily Centre in Tower Hamlets on Saturday.

The demonstration has been organised by a new group called the Anti-Extremism Alliance, which has already issued an Open letter to Tower Hamlets Council and East London Advertiser demanding that the Water Lily cancel the booking.

You might wonder how an avowed defender of free expression like Tatchell got involved in this. As we have previously pointed out, he holds the formal position that “freedom of speech is so precious that it must be defended, even when we disagree with the sentiments expressed” and “should be limited only in exceptional circumstances – when it slips into inciting violence and murder”. And nobody supposes that Hizb ut-Tahrir will be using Saturday’s conference to advocate violence or murder. We can only conclude that Tatchell’s absolute commitment to free speech ceases to apply when the people expressing the disagreeable sentiments are Muslims.

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Lyon: deputy mayor conducting marriage ceremony forces bride to remove headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French news sources (see here, here and here) have reported on the case of a Muslim couple, Samira and Mohamed ****, who went to the town hall in the 9th district of Lyon on 4 June to get married.

The Coalition Against Racism and Islamophobia (CRI) reported that Samira was immediately challenged by the deputy mayor, Fatiha ben Ahmed of the Europe Écologie – Les Verts party, who was responsible for conducting the marriage ceremony. Ben Ahmed demanded that Samira should remove her headscarf and threatened the couple that she would not proceed with the ceremony unless the bride did as she was told. Under pressure from the deputy mayor and lacking knowledge of the regulations, Samira complied and removed her hijab.

It has been pointed out that there is in fact no legislation that allows a mayor or his deputy to refuse to marry a couple on the grounds that the bride wears a headscarf. Fatiha ben Ahmed’s demand was particularly discriminatory, given that it is a French tradition that brides wear a tulle veil at marriage ceremonies.

The Coalition Against Racism and Islamophobia wrote to the mayor Alain Giordano protesting about the couple’s disgraceful treatment. Giordano replied that he had summoned ben Ahmed to his office to explain her behaviour and that the case would be discussed at a council meeting. The mayor gave his assurance that there would be no repetition of the incident.

Pat Condell claims all rapists in Oslo are ‘Muslim immigrants’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oslo rapes TV report
Misleading Norwegian TV report on the findings of police study of rapes in Oslo

Last week the National Secular Society’s favourite “comedian” Pat Condell posted his latest video on YouTube. Entitled “Islamic cultural terrorism”, it was enthusiastically received by Condell’s fellow anti-Muslim racists in the English Defence League.

EDL Pat Condell

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French court hears first case against women who refuse to accept veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Meaux veil court case
Hind (right) with supporters outside the court

A French court Thursday heard the country’s first case against women refusing to obey a new law banning the wearing of Islamic face veils in public.

The two women, who wear the niqab, were ordered to appear before the court in the town of Meaux, about 40 kilometres east of Paris, for going to the local town hall on May 5 with their faces veiled.

Both the women live in the Paris region. One of them could not be present at the hearing. The other woman, Hind, 31, a mother of a three-year-old, was barred from entering the courtroom after refusing to remove her veil for the duration of the hearing. “I accepted to undergo an identity check (by briefly showing her face). But they refused all compromise,” she told the German Press Agency dpa.

The two women were booked by police after showing up at Meaux town hall with a birthday cake for Mayor Jean-Francois Cope, who is also leader of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative ruling Union for a Popular Majority (UMP). The cake was made of almonds, a word which sounds like the French word for fines (amendes), and was meant as a dig at the government over the timid application by the authorities of the two-month-old law.

While several women have been booked by police, only one has been fined so far, according to Rachid Nekkaz, founder of Don’t Touch My Constitution, a group lobbying against the ban.

Hind said she hoped to be fined, so that she could challenge the law, which she sees as an attack on her freedom of religion, in the European Court of Human Rights.

DPA, 16 June 2011

Peter Tatchell not only encourages Islamophobia – he defends the right of homophobes to incite hatred against the LGBT community

Posted on by Bob Pitt


Banner at an English Defence League ‘support Israel’ demonstration in October 2010

What a popular man Peter Tatchell is. His article on the Mohammed Hasnath case, titled “Gay Free Zone conviction is disturbing”, which originally appeared on the New Statesman blog, has been crossposted at both Pink News and Harry’s Place, not to mention on a website rejoicing in the name of 9-11 Do more than Never Forget – Stop ISLAM. It has also been reproduced by the English Defence League’s Casuals United faction, who have provided their own approving headline, “Peter Tatchell piles into the Islamists”.

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French court bars Muslim woman from wearing headscarf, judge insults her faith

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France reports on the disgraceful treatment of a Muslim woman in Béziers who attended a court hearing over the custody of her child.

She was told by a police officer that that she would have to remove her headscarf out of respect for the judge, by order of the court, otherwise the hearing would take place in her absence. When she tried to enter the courtroom wearing a headband rather than a scarf she was barred by the clerk who told her “no, no, veils are prohibited” and made her remove the headband before she was allowed in.

During the hearing the judge told the woman that she was a “bad mother” because she had allowed her son to convert to Islam, which the judge described as “an act of barbarism towards children”, adding “don’t tell me that the Muslim religion is better than any other religion”. Despite the evidence that the child wanted to remain with his mother the judge stated that it was not for the child to “choose and lay down the law in this court”.

The CCIF has condemned the the court’s treatment of the young woman and has called on the minister of justice to take disciplinary action against the judge.

How the French veil ban is being implemented

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In France, one month after the start of the nation’s burka ban, women wearing face-covering garments are being forced to remove their veil in public to avoid police harassment.

Five women were immediately detained by police for wearing the burka on city streets as they attempted to attend a conference on the effects of the law. The organizer of the conference was forcibly removed after he tried to talk to one of the women, who had become ill during questioning.

The conference was organized by the multicultural association Don’t Touch My Constitution. The group has raised funds to help women pay the 150-euro fine the law calls for, but they say they haven’t spent one cent.

Proponents of the law say the ban protects the country from religious radicalism, as well as France’s principle of secularism, or laicite in French.

Many Muslims have complained that French media coverage consistently ignores the religious convictions of those who wear the burka. Instead, the women are portrayed as mere tools, with domineering men controlling their every move.

The law, which was roundly criticized by police organizations, may not have led to mass arrests, but Muslim groups say they must provide a voice for the many women who have refused to leave the house for fear of embarrassment.

People say the French government is applying the law carefully, but unevenly. It seems they’re largely ignoring the heavily Muslim suburbs, but it also seems that police can still make a big show when they feel it’s necessary.

Press TV, 11 May 2011

See also the New York Times which reports the French Interior Ministry as stating that police have stopped 46 women wearing face-veils in public, 27 of whom have been charged and will be fined about $215 or forced to take an official course on citizenship.

Dawkins ponders anti-Islam alliance with evangelical Christians

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bakke anti-Islam mapRichard Dawkins is often described as a “militant atheist”. However, if this term is meant to convey that Dawkins maintains a uniform hostility to all varieties of religious belief then it is misapplied.

Dawkins makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is discriminatory in his opposition to different faiths. He happily describes himself as a “cultural Christian” – by which he means a cultural Anglican. After all, according to Dawkins, Roman Catholicism is “the world’s second most evil religion”. No prizes for guessing which faith is the most evil. Indeed, Dawkins holds the view that Islam is not only by far the worst of all the major faiths but is also arguably “the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today”.

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