Category Archives: Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Cameron calls for ban on Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi2The Leader of the Opposition has urged the Prime Minister to stop controversial Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi from entering the country. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, David Cameron said that he was a “hate preacher” and should be denied entry.

Gordon Brown told MPs that the Islamic preacher is not in the country yet and in any case there are judicial processes that supervise deportations. He said a decision about whether to grant Mr al-Qaradawi entry into the UK will be made “very soon.”

Mr Cameron accused him of dithering: “People watching this will just conclude this Prime Minister cannot answer a question and cannot make a decision. Never mind the complete lack of vision, never mind the constant re-launches, just concentrate on keeping us safe.”

Yesterday Mr Cameron led calls to refuse entry to Mr al-Qaradawi and others who “preach hate, pit one faith against another and divide our society.”

Pink News, 30 January 2008

Cameron seeks ‘hate preachers’ ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Cameron 2Conservative leader David Cameron has called for a ban on “preachers of hate” entering the United Kingdom. Mr Cameron accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of dithering over the case of Islamist cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, following press reports that he is to be granted permission to come to London for medical treatment.

The Tory leader branded Mr al-Qaradawi – and the head of Hezbollah’s TV station Ibrahim Moussawi, who recently spoke in Manchester – “dangerous and divisive” and said they should not be allowed in the country. And he called for a complete ban on Islamist political movements Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Hezbollah.

Speaking at the first meeting in London of a working group between the Conservatives and the main German centre-right party the CDU, Mr Cameron is due to say: “It’s clear for reasons of our security that we must expel or refuse entry to those who preach hate, pit one faith against another and divide our society.

“So I call on the Government to confirm that it will not be giving al-Qaradawi permission to enter this country and that it will not repeat the mistake of last December and make clear that Moussawi is not welcome in the UK.”

Press Association, 29 November 2008

See also Pink News, 28 November 2008

Row over Islamist cleric’s visa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

YusufalQaradawiAn Islamist cleric who has defended suicide bombings and the execution of homosexuals is to be allowed to enter the UK, sparking a major row between government departments.

The Observer understands that senior civil servants in the Home Office and Foreign Office have recommended that ministers approve an application by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is banned from entering the United States, to come to London for medical treatment.

The news has prompted unease in the Department for Communities and Local Government, which fears that allowing Qaradawi in might offend other faith groups as well as many Muslims.

There were calls last night for ministers to reject Qaradawi’s application. “Qaradawi has been banned from the US since 1999,” said Dr Irfan al-Alawi, international director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism. “Why should the British government allow him to come here?”

Observer, 27 January 2008

See also “Foreign Office approves visit by anti-semitic Muslim fascist” by Adrian Morgan. The irony of a self-proclaimed admirer of Nick Griffin denouncing fascism will not be lost on readers of Islamophobia Watch.

For the views of actual fascists on Qaradawi see Stormfront.

Reconsider voting for Ken says Bright

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin_brightIn his New Statesman blog Martin Bright offers his justifications for presenting an anti-Livingstone “documentary” for Channel 4 which can only aid Tory candidate Boris Johnson’s campaign to replace Ken as London mayor.

Regular readers of Islamophobia Watch will be aware of Bright’s politics. He accuses a section of the Left of forming an alliance with “fascism” ( i.e. with representative Muslims organisations like the MCB or the British Muslim Initiative) and to combat this he advocates an alternative alliance between the “real Left” (i.e. people like himself and Nick Cohen) and the Islamophobic hard Right. So a de facto bloc with Boris Johnson is much what you would expect from Bright.

However, it’s only towards the end of Bright’s blog post that we get to the meat of his argument against the current mayor. Bright writes:

“Livingstone was widely criticised when he invited the Egyptian radical scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London in 2004. Peter Tatchell, the veteran human rights activist, was one of those who objected to the visit. His words should be food for thought for everyone considering voting for Livingstone this year: ‘I’ve been a very strong supporter of Ken Livingstone for nearly 30 years … I think overall he has been a good mayor for London but I do think there are a number of issues where he’s made some monumental misjudgements. When I questioned the rationale and the ethics of inviting Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London, the relationship with Ken Livingstone suddenly changed … Ken took the view that because I didn’t agree with him inviting to London someone who is anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic and who justifies terrorist suicide bombings, because I opposed that, I was an Islamophobe’.”

Bright tells us piously that “I could think of nothing worse than to support Johnson”. However, in an election where the only possible alternative to Livingstone is Johnson, people intending to vote for Livingstone should reconsider doing so, according to Bright, on the grounds that Ken welcomed a leading scholar of Islam to City Hall.

Unlike Bright, his co-thinker Nick Cohen at least has the honesty to present that argument clearly and openly.

Update:  See “Martin Bright’s mythical dragons”, Salaam Blogs, 18 January 2008

‘Could a robust Christian response be the answer to Muslim extremism?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dominic Lawson interviews the Bishop of Rochester:

“Dr Nazir-Ali does not simply blame the Saudis, or other foreign governments who might have been funding militant Islam in the mosques of Great Britain, for the rise in Muslim chauvinism in this country. He blames the British people themselves, arguing that there has been a catastrophic collapse in Christian-based morality and spirituality in this country over the past 40 or so years and that this has created a ‘moral vacuum’ in society as a whole, which has been increasingly filled – at least in the minds of impressionable youth – by fundamentalist Islam…. Dr Nazir-Ali is deeply critical of the way in which New Labour, supposedly packed with devout Christians, has indulged men such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”

Independent, 7 December 2007

Conservative Muslims back Ahmadinejad shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conservative Muslim ForumWell, that’s the line the Daily Telegraph is taking anyway, and Conservative Home is joining in. What’s got them so worked up is the document submitted by the Conservative Muslim Forum in response to An Unquiet World, the report of the Tories’ National and International Security Policy Group chaired by Dame Pauline Neville-Jones.

The CMF’s response hits some nails on the head. It has a good line on Israel and Iran, which particularly outrages the Telegraph and Conservative Home (though the Torygraph is no less appalled by the CMF’s proposal that the history curriculum in schools should give “full recognition to the massive contribution that Islam has made to the development of Western civilisation”).

Conservative Home for its part is dismayed by the CMF’s defence of the Muslim Council of Britain, who were grossly misrepresented by Neville-Jones’ policy group, providing the basis for an ignorant attack on the MCB by David Cameron. The CMF asks:

“What is the evidence for the statement ‘the MCB does not have as one of its aims, the integration of members of Muslim communities into the wider society of the UK’? … it should be noted that one of the formal aims of the MCB is ‘to foster better community relations and work for the good of society as a whole’, which is what integration is about. The Policy Group did not specify what MCB activities they consider to be incompatible with integration. The Conservative Party should recognise that the MCB is well-respected by many Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Also by implication the Conservative Muslim Forum opposes Cameron’s call for a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir: “… it is the mark of a mature and liberal democracy that it accepts people’s freedom to disagree. If a political party wishes to campaign, constitutionally, for the abolition of democracy in the UK and its replacement by a totalitarian system, why should it not be free to do so?”

Neville-Jones’ An Unquiet World report contains a ludicrously inaccurate attack on Dr al-Qaradawi. To which the CMF replies: “While we may disagree with many of the views of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, it is inaccurate for the Policy Group to question his status as a leading Islamic scholar…. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is considered a leading scholar by many Muslims, including other Muslim scholars.”

Conservative Home complains: “It is deeply troubling to learn of a group within the Conservative Party giving comfort to this extremist.”

An Unquiet Word: A Response can be downloaded from the Conservative Muslim Forum website.

For earlier criticisms of Neville-Jones’ report by Conservative Muslims, see here.

Cameron accuses Muslims of ‘cultural separatism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David CameronThe Tory Party website has posted David Cameron’s speech to the “Islam and Muslims in the World Today” conference.

Cameron attributes the Channel 4 poll results, which indicate widespread suspicion among Muslims about the official account of 7/7, not to the understandable mistrust of a government that lied about the Iraq war but to the prevalence of “cultural separatism” within Muslim communities. He goes on to blame “the influence of a number of Muslim preachers that actively encourage cultural separatism. One such preacher is Yusuf al’Qaradawi….”

Cameron also complains that the “process of rising Muslim consciousness [which he apparently thinks is by definition a bad thing] has been accelerated by the creed of multiculturalism, which despite intending to allow diversity flourish under a common banner of unity, has instead fostered difference by treating faith communities as monolithic blocks rather than individual citizens”.

He continues: “This rise in Muslim consciousness has been reinforced by a second, parallel, factor at work: the deliberate weakening of our collective identity in Britain. Again, multiculturalism has its part to play. By concentrating on defining the various cultures that have come to call Britain home, we have forgotten to define the most important one: our own.”

As for Muslim disaffection with British foreign policy, Cameron has found a solution: “We have to explain patiently and carefully that in Iraq and Afghanistan we are supporting democratically elected Muslim leaders.”

‘In bed with the enemy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and Mayor“Imagine if Mayor Bloomberg invited a Muslim cleric from Egypt known for his advocacy of female genital mutilation, wife-beating, ‘martyrdom’ bombings in Israel and Iraq, and the murder of homosexuals and converts from Islam to be an honored guest of the city. New Yorkers would naturally rebel against the mayor, who would certainly survive politically. But what if he did something even more brazen and perverse: invite the cleric back. Surely, it couldn’t happen here. But it did happen in London last year under the aegis of left-wing mayor, Ken Livingstone. Livingstone considers Yusuf al-Qaradawi (the cleric’s name) a huggable, ‘moderate’ liaison between East and West. Anyone arguing otherwise Livingstone accuses of xenophobia or – a ridiculous term now gaining traction in the United Kingdom – ‘Islamophobia’.”

Yet another right-wing boost for Nick Cohen’s book, What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way, this one by Michael Weiss in the New York Daily Post, 6 May 2007

Of course, the visit by Dr Qaradawi actually took place in July 2004. But when you have such a lightminded attitude to the facts in general why bother getting the date right?

Tatchell complains he has been ‘smeared as anti-Muslim’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Outrage“Allegations of ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘racism’ are increasingly manufactured and manipulated to stop debate, silence critics and discredit opponents. I have been on the receiving end of this mud-slinging by the Mayor of London and his Socialist Action apparatchiks, the National Assembly Against Racism, the Muslim Council of Britain and the notorious Islamophobia Watch website.

“The unprincipled, sectarian ‘left’ colludes with right-wing Islamists, such as the sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic fundamentalist cleric, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. When I, and others, dared condemn Qaradawi’s support for suicide bombing and female genital mutilation, we were denounced as ‘Islamophobes.’ The idea was to marginalise our critique by smearing us as anti-Muslim. These dirty tricks are the copy-book tactics of the far right. They have nothing in common with humanitarian or socialist values.”

Poor picked-on Peter Tatchell has a whinge in Democratiya, Spring 2007

For a recent critique of Tatchell on the notorious Islamophobia Watch website, see here.

For an example of the support Tatchell has attracted in the right-wing blogoshere see here.

Hitch condemns Muslim masochism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hitchens“We are supposed to watch what we say about Islam, lest by any chance we be considered ‘offensive’. A fair number of authors and academics in the West now have to live under police protection or endure prosecution in the courts for not observing this taboo with sufficient care.

“A stupid term – Islamophobia –  has been put into circulation to try and suggest that a foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam’s infallible ‘message’. Well, this idiotic masochism has to be dropped.

“There may have been a handful of ugly incidents, provoked by lumpen elements, after certain episodes of Muslim terrorism. But no true secularist or even Christian has been involved in anything like the torching of a mosque….

“But where are the denunciations from centers of Sunni and Shiite authority of the daily murder and torture of Islamic co-religionists? Of the regular desecration of holy sites and holy books? Of the paranoid insults thrown so carelessly and callously by one Muslim group at another? [Er … here, here and here, for example? – ed.] This mounting ghastliness is a bit more worthy of condemnation, surely, than a few Danish cartoons or a false rumor about a profaned copy of the Quran in Guantanamo.

“The civilized world – yes I do mean to say that – should find its own voice and state firmly to Muslim leaders and citizens that respect is something to be earned and not demanded with menace. A short way of phrasing this would be to say, ‘See how the Muslims respect each other!'”

That well-known representative of the civilised world, Christopher Hitchens, lectures Muslims on the meaning of respect.

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