Category Archives: State Oppression

Ballot to ban Sharia law in Oklahoma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDMOND — State lawmakers say it’s a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law, needed to prevent here what has happened in the United Kingdom. An Islamic leader says it’s another example of a rising tide of anti-Islamic bigotry in America.

State Question 755, which likely will be on the ballot in November, would make in-state courts rely on federal and state laws when deciding cases and forbid courts from using international law or Sharia law when making rulings.

The proposal would amend Article 7, Section 1 of the Oklahoma Constitution, and stems from House Joint Resolution 1056, dubbed the “Save Our State” amendment, passed during the just-finished legislative session.

State Rep. Lewis Moore, R-Edmond, a co-author of HJR 1056, said he wanted to express his support very early for the legislation, which is needed because of the “onslaught” coming Oklahoma’s way. “I don’t think we should accept or encourage Sharia law in any way, shape or form,” Moore said.

State Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, primary author of HJR 1056, said Oklahoma is the first state to pass such legislation and he hopes other states will follow. Duncan said Sharia law is entrenched in the United Kingdom. “It is a cancer upon the survivability of the UK,” Duncan said. “SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law coming to Oklahoma.”

State Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, a co-author of HJR 1056, said American courts are being more frequently challenged that international law should trump U.S. law. “Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept,” Sykes said. “Hopefully the passage of this constitutional amendment will prevent it in Oklahoma.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said he has been working on Muslim civil rights issues for several decades and anti-Islam rhetoric is approaching “Nazi-like” levels. “This is just the flip side of the anti-Semitic coin,” Hooper said.

Edmond Sun, 4 June 2010

Ballot to ban Sharia law in Oklahoma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDMOND — State lawmakers say it’s a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law, needed to prevent here what has happened in the United Kingdom. An Islamic leader says it’s another example of a rising tide of anti-Islamic bigotry in America.

State Question 755, which likely will be on the ballot in November, would make in-state courts rely on federal and state laws when deciding cases and forbid courts from using international law or Sharia law when making rulings.

The proposal would amend Article 7, Section 1 of the Oklahoma Constitution, and stems from House Joint Resolution 1056, dubbed the “Save Our State” amendment, passed during the just-finished legislative session.

State Rep. Lewis Moore, R-Edmond, a co-author of HJR 1056, said he wanted to express his support very early for the legislation, which is needed because of the “onslaught” coming Oklahoma’s way. “I don’t think we should accept or encourage Sharia law in any way, shape or form,” Moore said.

State Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, primary author of HJR 1056, said Oklahoma is the first state to pass such legislation and he hopes other states will follow. Duncan said Sharia law is entrenched in the United Kingdom. “It is a cancer upon the survivability of the UK,” Duncan said. “SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law coming to Oklahoma.”

State Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, a co-author of HJR 1056, said American courts are being more frequently challenged that international law should trump U.S. law. “Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept,” Sykes said. “Hopefully the passage of this constitutional amendment will prevent it in Oklahoma.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said he has been working on Muslim civil rights issues for several decades and anti-Islam rhetoric is approaching “Nazi-like” levels. “This is just the flip side of the anti-Semitic coin,” Hooper said.

Edmond Sun, 4 June 2010

The £3m CCTV cameras that spy on Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

When the cameras appeared above the rooftops in the Birmingham suburbs, some people realised they were mostly automatic number plate reading (ANPR) cameras, used to track drivers’ movements. Protesters sprayed the camera posts with messages such as “1984 Big Brother” and “You are now entering a police state.”

Those suspicious enough to ask what the cameras were for were given the impression they were part of a Home Office initiative to tackle vehicle crime on the Stratford Road corridor, an arterial route into the city.

For the vast majority of people on the bustling streets of Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook, two of the city’s predominantly Muslim areas, the cameras were inconspicuous, melting into pavements filled with fruit stalls and fabric shops.

But an investigation by the Guardian has established that the surveillance cameras are the first of a kind in the UK. While they may be used for ordinary crime fighting, they were put up to monitor extremists that the police and MI5 know to be living among the city’s Muslim population.

The cameras appeared at 81 sites without consultation, after being requested by West Midlands police counterterrorism unit more than two years ago. They include around 150 ANPR cameras, 40 of which have been classified as “covert”, and are thought to be concealed in walls and trees by the side of the road.

Guardian, 5 June 2010

See also Guardian, 4 June 2010

Another Catalan town council to consider veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The full council of El Vendrell (Tarragona), in line with the motion adopted in Lleida, will examine in the second week of June a proposal from CiU, to prohibit the use of the burqa and niqab in public facilities in the municipality.

To date, the CiU initiative has not been seconded by any other relevant council of the Tarragona region, although the PP de Catalunya is “gathering information” in the capital of Tarragona, and its leader, Alejandro Fernandez, advanced to meet the mayor, Josep Felix Ballesteros to reach a consensus position on this matter, “without trying to draw political benefits of such a sensitive issue.”

Fernandez made no secret that he would be in favour of banning the burka “not only in public facilities but also in public places” because “the standard bearer for the progressive multiculturalism has a very clear limit on human rights.”

Barcelona Reporter, 2 June 2010

See also “Spanish towns consider Islamic veil ban: reports”, Expatica, 2 June 2010

Call for veil ban in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

For obviously superficial reasons, I’ve always associated Belgium with expensive chocolates, rather than political acts of bravery. That changed with its decision to ban the burqa. For a tiny country to be prepared to publicly reject this symbol of oppression gave me great hope that other open societies like ours could follow suit.

Since then, of course, an Australian MP, Senator Cory Bernardi, inflamed the Muslim community by describing the burqa as the “preferred disguise of bandits” in the wake of it being used by an armed robber in a Sydney shopping centre.

Notwithstanding the Senator’s cultural foot-in-mouth routine, far greater politicians have also expressed opposition, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who described the burqa as a “sign of subservience” and said that, in France, “we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity”.

And so it should be in this country that a stand is taken to expressly reject the eye-slitted, head-to-toe covering that renders a woman a shapeless non-person. On the basis of human decency and basic equality between the sexes, that position would seem a no-brainer but incredibly such a move is seen by some as intolerant.

What is it about the Australian condition that makes us feel as though we have to continuously apologise for who we are and what we stand for? Tolerating the burqa is not about multicultural harmony, it merely allows us to turn a blind eye to subjugation.

Liam Bartlett in the Sunday Telegraph, 30 May 2010

Lerida bans veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Spanish town of Lerida has become the first in the country to ban the Burka in municipal buildings.

The town council voted to prohibit the “use of the veil and other clothes and accessories which cover the face and prevent identification in buildings and installations of the town hall.”

The vote, by 23 to one with two abstentions, is the first of its kind in Spain, a country where Islamic veils and the body-covering burqas are little in evidence despite a large Muslim population.

The move is aimed at promoting “respect for the dignity of women and values of equality and tolerance,” the town hall said in a statement.

Daily Telegraph, 29 May 2010

Catalan town council to vote Friday on veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spain’s northeastern town of Lerida is to vote Friday to ban the wearing of the burqa in municipal buildings, the mayor’s office said, in an apparent first for the country.

A proposal was being drawn up and the majority socialists were behind the push to ban the face-covering Islamic veil in the municipality’s buildings, a spokesman for the mayor’s office said Wednesday.

The town had asked its legal services to look into the possibility of banning the garment in all public spaces in the name of the fundamental rights of women, the official said.

“We cannot regulate the usage of the burqa in the road, but we can do that in municipal buildings,” he said.

Few women wear the full veil in Lerida, a town in the Catalonia region that has about 140,000 residents, one-fifth of whom are immigrants including from North Africa.

AFP, 26 May 2010

Government to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sunday Telegraph has published details of the Queen’s Speech. The list of bills to be introduced before the summer recess includes:

Terrorist Asset Freezing Bill. (Treasury)

There is already provision for freezing terrorists’ assets in law – however, a new Bill could be the vehicle for expanding the definition of an organisation classed as terrorist, possibly to include Hizb-ut-Tahir, the revolutionary Islamist party, which David Cameron has said he will ban.

57 per cent of Swiss favour ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A majority of Swiss citizens are in favour of banning the wearing of the burqa, a poll released on Sunday found. According to Swiss television, 57.6% of those interviewed for the survey favoured outlawing the Islamic garb for women which covers the entire body.

Last year, a nationwide Swiss referendum prompted criticism across Europe as nearly 58% of Swiss citizens had voted in favour of a law to ban building new minarets across the country. In Sunday’s poll, 26.5% were against banning the burqa, while 15.9% remained undecided.

The poll was conducted for the German-language SonntagsBlick newspaper, interviewing a total of 502 people aged 14-59, from all regions of Switzerland.

The local council in Aargau, a canton (state) in the north of Switzerland along the German border, voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to work on an initiative to make wearing the burqa in public places illegal across the country. Most major parties backed the move.

News 24, 23 May 2010

Clapham Common is a ‘Muslim ghetto’ claims US TV presenter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

This exchange between right-wing US TV presenter Bill O’Reilly and political commentator Imogen Lloyd Webber would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of US citizens get their information from Fox News.

Lloyd Webber attacks the proposed French ban on the veil as “a massive mistake”, “an infringement of women’s rights”, “completely counterproductive” and “an act of discrimination” – which is not at all to O’Reilly’s taste. He counters that the French “are really worried about these Muslim ghettos”, which he associates with riots and suicide bombing.

O’ Reilly insists: “The same thing’s going on in London. You have neighbourhoods in London, they’re totally Muslim, they speak Arabic. You walk in those neighbourhoods, you’re not in England – you’re not there, you’re in Kuwait.”

“I can’t actually think of one in London”, Lloyd Webber replies. “Clapham Common”, suggests O’Reilly, bizarrely. Lloyd Webber responds that “Clapham Common is full of posh people with push-chairs”!