Category Archives: State Oppression

Muslim leaders denounce police over raids in Czech capital

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders in the Czech Republic on Monday accused the police of abusing their power after armed officers raided Islamic institutions in Prague over the weekend, detaining 20 people during Friday Prayer at a mosque and a community center, and arresting the publisher of a book that law enforcement officials say incites xenophobia and violence.

A spokesman for the Czech police, Pavel Hantak, declined to identify the publisher or the book. He told the Czech news media that he did not want to help promote a book that disseminated racism, anti-Semitism and violence against what it called “inferior races.”

The police said the publisher was a 55-year-old Czech citizen who had the book translated into Czech. He has been charged with promoting hate speech, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Muneeb Hassan Alrawi, the head of the Association of Czech Muslim Religious Communities, said in an interview on Monday that law enforcement officials had indicated that the book behind the raids was “The Fundamentals of Tawheed” by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born imam, who has been banned from entering Australia and Britain and expelled from Germany because of what his critics call extremist views.

Mr. Alrawi said that several copies of the book had been confiscated by the police during a raid Friday at the headquarters of the Islamic Foundation, a community center in Prague, the Czech capital.

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Florida Senate OKs bill banning use of foreign law in family court cases

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Foreign laws would be banned in Florida courts for certain family-related cases, under a bill the Senate sent to the House on Monday.

The Senate voted 24-14 to approve the proposal (SB 386) by Umatilla Republican Alan Hays, who has pushed various versions of the measure the past few years. The bill would restrict courts and arbitration tribunals from applying foreign law and legal codes to matters of divorce, alimony, division of marital assets, child support and child custody.

The proposal is more defined than last year’s effort, which got House support but failed to advance in the Senate. The House companion (HB 903) has reached the floor but has yet to be scheduled for debate.

Hays said the bill will do nothing to impede international trade, a prior concern of business groups, and won’t cast a negative message upon anyone from another country. “For those people who want to come to America we welcome them, but when you come to America you’re going to be governed on American laws and when you come to Florida you’re going to be governed on Florida laws,” Hays said. “We dare not apologize for that, folks. This is a very good bill. It’s an all American bill.”

But the bill has been criticized as anti-Muslim and targeted at Sharia religious law followed in some Islamic countries.

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Teachers complain about behaviour of Ofsted inspectors investigating ‘plot’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Teachers from Birmingham schools being investigated by Ofsted over an alleged Islamist takeover plot have reportedly been told their schools will be downgraded because they were “not teaching anti-terrorism”.

Other teachers were asked by Ofsted inspectors if they were homophobic, according to Roger King, the National Union of Teachers’ executive member for Birmingham, who said he had received complaints from members whose schools were being investigated in one of several inquiries into the alleged plot. “You do question how objective Ofsted were when they went into those schools,” King said.

The claims come as Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools in England, announced he was going to Birmingham to take personal charge of the investigation into 16 schools in the city, amid media reports claiming all the schools had been downgraded after visits by Ofsted inspectors.

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Police find no evidence of criminality by Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur Rahman and John WareA police investigation into allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement by the mayor of a London council has found “no credible evidence of criminality”.

Lutfur Rahman, elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, east London, was accused by the BBC’s Panorama of more than doubling public funding to Bangladeshi and Somali groups from £1.5m to £3.6m in the face of recommendations from council officers. He denied the allegations, saying they had been motivated by racism and Islamophobia.

The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, sent inspectors into the borough to investigate Rahman’s activities, but Metropolitan police officers who reviewed the allegations found no evidence of fraud or other offences.

He will face no further action from police “at this stage”, but the force said it was appropriate for outside auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to continue their financial review of the council.

A Scotland Yard statement said: “On Friday 4 April the Metropolitan Police Service received three files of material from the Department for Communities and Local Government relating to the London borough of Tower Hamlets. These comprised material referred to the DCLG by a member of the public and by the BBC Panorama programme.

“The files have been reviewed by a team of officers over the past six days. In addition, officers have liaised with PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are conducting a full and wide-ranging audit of financial matters at the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

“There is no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed at this stage. Therefore the MPS will not be investigating at this point in time and believe that it is appropriate for the material to be reviewed further by PwC and DCLG. We will continue to liaise with them should their audit uncover any evidence of criminality.”

PwC has been asked to report back to Pickles by 30 June. Tower Hamlets council, which says it has seen no evidence that its processes have been run inappropriately, welcomed the police statement.

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New York police end Muslim surveillance program

Posted on by Bob Pitt

protesters against NYPD programmeA special New York Police Department unit that sparked controversy by tracking the daily lives of Muslims in an effort to detect terror threats has been disbanded, police officials said Tuesday.

NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis confirmed that detectives assigned to the unit had been transferred to other duties within the department’s Intelligence Division.

An ongoing review of the division by new Police Commissioner William Bratton found that the same information collected by the unit could be better collected through direct contact with community groups, officials said.

In a statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, called the move “a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys.”

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Police chief condemns appointment of terror officer over ‘Islamic schools plot’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chris SimsOne of Britain’s most senior police chiefs has attacked Michael Gove’s decision to appoint a counter-terrorism expert to investigate claims of a Islamist plot to take over schools in Birmingham.

Chris Sims [pictured], chief constable of West Midlands police, condemned as “desperately unfortunate” the appointment of Peter Clarke to look into allegations of Islamic fundamentalists infiltrating schools.

Peter Clarke, who served as head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit and led the investigation into the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, has been asked to examine claims made in an unsigned and unverified document, circulated in Birmingham and beyond, boasting of an plot named Operation Trojan Horse.

The alleged plotters claimed to have “taken over” secular state schools in Birmingham, ousting non-compliant heads and governors and running the schools on “strict Islamic principles”.

Sims told the Guardian that the letter that sparked the controversy could be a hoax and was not being treated as a criminal matter. He said Clarke’s appointment made it appear as though the saga was being officially handled as a counter-terrorism issue.

Asked whether he thought the appointment may damage community relations, Sims said: “It must be a concern. People could be made fearful if they think that is the way this issue is being perceived.”

He added: “Peter Clarke has many qualities but people will inevitably draw unwarranted conclusions from his former role as national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism. I am a strong supporter of open and inclusive education for all children in Birmingham and across the West Midlands and am committed to the process adopted by Birmingham city council with educational and social inclusion at its heart.”

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