A recent post here on Tariq Ramadan included, as an example of the sort of company Professor Ramadan’s leftist critics find themselves in, a link to the Fire Tariq Ramadan blog. This prompted an indignant reply from the site’s owner: “Allegations of ‘Islamophobia’ made by goose-stepping Islamist sympathizers to equate any critique of radical Islamists with hatred of an entire group of people. This borders on calumny.”

Fire Tariq Ramadan, 8 June 2005

And this from a blogger whose response to Tariq Ramadan’s observation that Muslims have an increasing presence in Europe was: “I’m sure Theo van Gogh is happy about that. So are the victims of the gang-rapes in Sweden.” (See here.)

Bizarrely we are told that the Islamophobia Watch collective “must be Islamophobes themselves, considering they probably have a low opinion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali”.

Well, speaking personally, I have an extremely low opinion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. However, given that she has publicly renounced Islam and spends her time attacking her former co-religionists, it’s difficult to see how contempt for this appalling right-winger, who plays a major role in stoking up anti-Muslim racism in the Netherlands, amounts to Islamophobia.

Postscript:

For a reply from Fire Tariq Ramadan, see here.