Category Archives: State Oppression

Luton school head says he will challenge ‘half-baked’ Ofsted report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The head of an Islamic faith school says he will challenge an Ofsted report written by inspectors who asked nine-year-old students to define homosexuality.

Enraged parents at Olive Tree Primary School, Bury Park Road, threatened to take their children out of the independent school on Thursday after the Ofsted representatives admitted to questioning a group of nine and ten-year-old pupils on their understanding of homosexuality and gay marriage.

The schools watchdog has said that the session was designed to gauge tolerance at the school and its pupils, though parents have said that the incident “unduly sexualised” their children.

Islam forbids homosexuality and Olive Tree does not teach sexual education.

After being confronted during a planned meeting with parents on Thursday, inspectors agreed to leave the school and say they have information to complete a report – despite completing just two of the four days they were to spend there.

Headteacher Abdul Qadeer Baksh told Luton News that he would reject and challenge the report, given the short stay of inspectors.

He said: “I told them that they had more than a day and a half still to complete with plenty left to see at the school but they told me they had enough. The report will not be accurate, I asked them to come back another time but they will not. It will be half-baked and I will challenge it. I will not accept it.”

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Michael Gove calls for further schools investigations after Trojan Horse affair

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Gove's Trojan Horse
Celsius 7/7, Gove’s 2006 exercise in anti-Islamist scaremongering, and Chapter 8 – ‘The Trojan Horse’

Michael Gove has ordered snap investigations into Muslim schools in several cities around England, widening the focus outside of the so-called Trojan Horse allegations of an Islamist plot involving state schools in Birmingham.

At least five independent Muslim schools in Leicester, Bradford and Luton are said to have been visited by Ofsted inspectors at the request of the Department for Education in recent weeks, raising concerns among Muslim educators that they are being targeted in the wake of the Trojan Horse affair.

The snap inspections of the schools – including the Olive Tree primary school in Luton, which saw a confrontation between Ofsted staff and parents unhappy at the questioning of their children regarding homosexuality – appeared to be triggered by media reports of comments by head teachers or governors at the schools.

An inspection of the Alaqsa primary school in Leicester followed recent media reports of a booklet written 20 years previously by the school’s founder and head teacher, Ibrahim Hewitt, that detailed the punishments under Islamic law for adultery and acts of homosexuality. Hewitt said the inspectors arrived for a single day, and told the school that it didn’t teach enough Christianity or respect for other cultures.

“Commissioners was the word they used, sent by the DfE, without any explanation. We weren’t given any reason for them being there. They just turned up at the door, no notice at all. It was a very unpleasant experience,” Hewitt said. “It was awful. It was very clear that no matter what we said or tried to do, we weren’t going to get through.”

“It’s an attack on a lot of very good work to get Muslims involved in education for their children, raising standards, over 20 or 30 years. They are just trying to discredit all of that. Other people are telling me the same thing,” Hewitt said.

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IUMS to issue fatwa against UK over Muslim Brotherhood inquiry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

International Union for Muslim Scholars

Sources from the International Union of Muslim Scholars have stated that over 50 of its senior members from various countries are preparing to issue a fatwa against Britain in the event that the government takes measures against the Muslim Brotherhood. A committee appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron has been tasked to investigate the movement.

The sources also told Asrararabiya that the fatwa will call for the boycott of British goods and services as well as urging Arab tourists not to travel to Britain. If the report issued by the committee is negative, they said, the fatwa will consider it to be “a declaration of war against the Islamic communities and organisations in Britain and Europe and will fuel discrimination against Muslims worldwide.”

Those preparing the fatwa hope that thousands of their fellow Islamic scholars from all over the world, including the West, will sign it, allowing the legal opinion to reach a larger group of Muslims.

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‘Trojan Horse’ takeover plot by Muslims rubbish says Trust

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Park View School

The Trust which runs a Birmingham school at the centre of allegations of a “Trojan Horse” takeover plot by hardline Muslims has issued a statement rubbishing the claims.

The Park View Educational Trust, which runs three schools in Birmingham, said the political storm surrounding the alleged plot had created a “heightened climate” for false allegations to be repeated.

In its nine-page statement, the Trust claimed the “Trojan Horse” document outlining the allegations had created a backdrop “for the settling of political scores” that have nothing to do with its schools and students.

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New York police recruit Muslims to be informers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NYPDBeginning a few years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a squad of detectives, known as the Citywide Debriefing Team, has combed the city’s jails for immigrants – predominantly Muslims – who might be persuaded to become police informants, according to documents obtained by The New York Times, along with interviews with former members of the unit and senior police officials.

New York Times, 10 May 2014

See also “New York police recruiting Muslim informants: NY Times”, Reuters, 11 May 2014

Update:  See “CAIR asks DOJ to probe NYPD’s coercion of Muslim immigrants to become spies”, CAIR press release, 11 May 2014

Prague: Hundreds of Muslims protest police mosque raid

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Prague protest May 2014With prayer mats spread on the ground behind the Ministry of the Interior, hundreds of kneeling Muslims gathered today to protest last Friday’s police mosque raid.

About 300 men and several dozen women prayed, listened to speeches and made religious chants in a show of defiance against what a community leader described as an “entirely inappropriate” raid by officials.

There was a small anti-Muslim counter-protest in the area behind the Prague 7 ministry where the prayer gathering – Friday is the most important day of worship for Muslims – was held.

The action by the Czech Republic’s Muslim community comes after a raid by police on Friday last week of a mosque and of the headquarters of the Islamic Foundation. Officers detained a 55-year-old Czech citizen accused of organizing the translation of a book that, according to police, spreads racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Dozens of people were held at the mosque when the raid took place during Friday prayers.

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Israeli forces demolish West Bank mosque as peace talks deadline passes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Khirbet Al-Taweel mosque demolishedIsraeli forces demolished several structures, including a mosque, in a Palestinian village on Tuesday, the day a deadline for a deal in now-frozen peace talks expired.

A Reuters correspondent saw several hundred soldiers deployed in Khirbet al-Taweel, in the occupied West Bank, around daybreak. They guarded six bulldozers that reduced to rubble buildings that were constructed without Israeli permits. Palestinians say such documents are nearly impossible to obtain.

Palestinians saw a link between the demolitions and the passing, without a peace deal, of the April 29 deadline set when the talks began in July. Israel has also drawn Palestinian anger by continuing to expand settlements on land they seek for a state.

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