Category Archives: UK

British Muslims fear backlash after David Haines murder

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British Muslims are bracing themselves for a backlash after the beheading of David Haines by Islamic State militants, leading community figures have said.

Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said a backlash was experienced virtually every time violence carried out by extremists who claimed to act in the name of religion received high-profile media coverage.

Anxiety among Muslim communities was already heightened this weekend before news of Haines’s murder, after a mosque in Rotherham was attacked in the wake of a protest by the extremist English Defence League.

Khan said: “Somebody somewhere is going to react, it’s been proven, it’s happened many times: after 9/11, after 7 July [2005 attacks on London] and after [the murder of] Lee Rigby.”

He said the greatest fear was of attacks on Islamic buildings such as mosques, and on vulnerable people, such as women wearing the hijab.

At the East London mosque in Tower Hamlets worshippers said the risk of reprisal attacks in the UK increased with each new report of violence. “Isis and the beheading is not something we recognise at all,” said Amir Younis, 42. “Everyone I’ve spoken to regards those people as complete lunatics. We don’t know who they are, they’ve come from nowhere, and all of a sudden they’re claiming to represent the whole of the Muslim community.

“But in terms of Islamophic reprisals, I don’t think things are going to get any worse than they already are. Islamophobia is something that the Islamic community needs to stop tolerating – we allow people to say the most ridiculous things.”

Two young women visiting the mosque, Aysha Islam and Shakila Hoque, said news of the beheading of Haines would spur on the EDL. “People talk about it a lot,” said Islam. “This area is more safe than places like Luton, but you never know what’s going to happen.”

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EDL supporters attack police during Rotherham sex abuse protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Rotherham September 2014English Defence League (EDL) protesters have attacked police in Rotherham while demonstrating over the recent revelations about child sexual exploitation in the town.

Three men linked to the demonstration were arrested ahead of the march on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon and remain in custody. A fourth man from Rotherham was also arrested on suspicion of committing a public order offence.

Police erected 10ft (3ft) barricades around the town centre, while extra officers were drafted in from around the country.

South Yorkshire police said officers had been “confronted with missiles and barriers” but said no injuries had so far been reported. Some 1,200 protesters were expected to descend on Rotherham, in what has been described as a political exploitation of the recent abuse findings.

The shock report last month said that although the majority of perpetrators were described as “Asian” by victims, some councillors were nervous about identifying the abusers’ ethnic origins “for fear of being thought racist”.

Weman Bennett of Unite Against Fascism said: “We want justice for the victims, but we don’t want racists exploiting it.” Speaking from the organisation’s small counter-demonstration, Bennett said most of the violence had been between EDL members themselves.

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Teacher suspended over alleged comment about Muslim student’s headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A teacher has been suspended after she allegedly made a comment about a Muslim student’s headscarf. Parents complained to police and Bolton Council following the alleged incident at Sunning Hill Primary School, Daubhill, on Wednesday.

It is claimed a girl at the school was fidgeting with her headscarf and the teacher involved was heard to say: “If she was in my class I would chuck the scarf in the bin.” The woman is alleged to have made the comments about the traditional female Muslim head dress in earshot of several pupils.

Bolton Council said the teacher had been suspended pending an investigation.

Bolton News, 13 September 2014

Fine over racist mosque rant after Lee Rigby murder

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man who launched into a racist tirade outside a Scottish mosque the morning after drummer Lee Rigby was hacked to death in London has escaped with a £150 fine.

Grant Gallagher caused a disturbance outside the mosque in Livingston, West Lothian. He was heard shouting: “The soldier was innocent. He didn’t deserve to die – you terrorists killed him.” He angrily grabbed the gate with both hands and shook it, screaming racist abuse.

Livingston Sheriff Court heard that an Asian man who witnessed the bizarre behaviour stopped his car and wound down the window. A woman having a cigarette in her garden nearby also heard Gallagher’s 2am rant. They were so concerned that police were summoned. Gallagher was detained and arrested some time later. He made no reply to caution and charge.

Gallagher, 55, of Lime Grove, Livingston, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening and abusive manner on May 26 last year. He admitted shouting and swearing and making racist remarks during the incident, classed as a racially aggravated offence.

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Police investigate as semi-naked man in homemade burka does ice bucket challenge video while waving sausages and bacon outside Bolton mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bolton mosque ice bucket challenge (2)A video showing a semi-naked man wearing a burka while doing an ice bucket challenge outside a mosque is being investigated by police.

The clip shows the man, clutching a packet of bacon, with sausages dangling between his legs, being drenched in water outside the Zakariyya Mosque in Peace Street, Daubhill. The man, wearing only his underwear, socks and shoes and a makeshift burka, makes several offensive remarks about Islam.

Another man with him can be heard telling him to hurry up, to which the man responds that he is not scared.

The video – seen by The Bolton News – was uploaded to YouTube and Facebook but was later removed. It is believed a number of people reported the incident to police, who are now investigating the incident as a hate crime.

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Shiv Malik smears British mosques, with the assistance of the Guardian

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Guardian Isis recruitment moves to British mosques

“Isis recruitment moves on from online networks to British mosques.” Seriously, that’s the title of a report in the Guardian, of all newspapers.

We know that right-wing tabloids have a disgraceful record of publishing inflammatory headlines about British Muslims that lack any factual basis, but you might have thought a progressive broadsheet which claims to uphold journalistic standards would feel obliged to come up with some solid evidence to justify such a damaging accusation. The Guardian article provides none.

The springboard for the allegations that British mosques are being used to facilitate recruitment to a terrorist organisation is an interview with a 19-year-old ISIS supporter named Abdullah, who uses the Twitter handle JihadWitness. He is reported as saying that he “believed active recruitment was now taking place in mosques and other centres across Europe following Isis successes and their announcement that they had established a theological state, or caliphate (khilafah) spanning Syria and Iraq”. He asserts that ISIS is particularly interested in the UK where there is “a large minority of Salafis”.

Evidently the Guardian thinks it’s appropriate to give credence to unsubstantiated claims about links between British mosques and terrorism, made by some obscure jihadi sympathiser whose Twitter feed consists of a stream of admiring comments about extremists around the world, from al-Shabab in Somalia to Abdullah el-Faisal in Jamaica. Did the Guardian‘s journalists make any effort to establish that “Abdullah” is in a position to give an informed account of ISIS’s recruitment techniques in the UK, rather than being just some deluded teenage fantasist?

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Five convicted over EDL Thatcham protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Thatcham flash demo

Four English Defence League (EDL) members have been convicted of a religiously aggravated offence following a Thatcham town centre protest.

The prosecution was brought after up to 20 people, some draped in St George Cross flags and one wearing a rubber pig mask, descended on The Broadway on the night on Friday, February 28. Their target was Hosans kebab van.

Chants of “Muslim groomers off our streets – go back to your own country,” and “no surrender to the Taliban” filled the room at Reading Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday as footage from police officers’ body cameras was screened. Naomi Edwards, prosecuting, said: “Protesting is fine and proper but this went beyond what’s acceptable.”

In the dock were 22-year-old Rory Rowbottom of Hartmead Road, Thatcham; Julie Anne Worthington, aged 35, of Russell Road, Reading; 50-year-old Simon Brammer of Haywards Close, Southampton, Hampshire and Gary Hazel, aged 38, of Forsyth Gardens, Bournemouth, Dorset. A fifth defendant, 44-year-old Edward Cullerne Scovell of Donnington Gardens, Reading, failed to turn up and was convicted in his absence.

They had been charged with a Section 5 offence of religiously aggravated harassment but a scheduled three-day trial was avoided after all but Mr Hazel – who denied the offence – admitted a lesser charge of using religiously aggravated, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

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ISIS ‘targeted Scot to force a Yes vote in referendum’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anthony GleesA leading intelligence expert fears Islamic extremists are deliberately threatening to behead a Scots aid worker to break up the UK.

David Haines was paraded by Islamic State fighters this week following the second beheading of a US journalist. A macabre video makes it clear the 44-year-old faces a brutal death at the hands of an IS executioner.

Last night highly-placed intelligence sources revealed it is “extremely likely” ISIS terror chiefs believe beheading Haines will make Prime Minister David Cameron appear “weak”, fuelling anti-British sentiment among referendum voters.

One expert believes they are using the dad-of-two in a propaganda drive as the Scottish independence referendum approaches. Professor Anthony Glees, one of the UK’s most respected intelligence analysts, is convinced ISIS sense an opportunity to weaken the UK via their brutal campaign of terror.

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Unite Against Fascism rejects EDL’s attempt to exploit Rotherham sexual abuse scandal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unite Against Fascism

In response to the recent Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Exploitation in Rotherham by Alexis Jay OBE, and the English Defence League’s decision to call an event in Rotherham on Saturday 13 September, Sabby Dhalu and Weyman Bennett, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretaries said:

“We condemn the sexual abuse & exploitation of women & children and the failure of those responsible to properly tackle the crime & bring the perpetrators to justice, as revealed in the recent Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Exploitation in Rotherham by Alexis Jay OBE. We support and seek justice for all victims of sexual exploitation regardless of their social or ethnic background. We condemn and seek prosecution of all those responsible for these crimes irrespective of their ethnicity or creed.

“We also condemn the decision by the English Defence League (EDL) to come to Rotherham on Saturday 13 September. We believe this is a cynical attempt by the EDL to use the appalling crime of child sexual exploitation to further its own ends.

“Revelations regarding child sex abuse from Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Thatcher Government Ministers to men in Rotherham show that institutions with responsibility including the police, child protection & other public services, national and local government, failed the victims mostly young women and children; and must take action to combat and prevent such horrific crimes.

“When discussing Saville, Harris, former government Ministers and child sex abuse, there is rightly no discussion of the link between white, British, English, Australian & Christian culture and child sex abuse. Those arguing that there is some link between Pakistani, Asian culture and Islam and organised child sex abuse in Rotherham or anywhere else in the country; or that failure to obtain justice for these crimes is due to the fear of offending Pakistani, Asian or Muslim communities are wrong.

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