Pubs crisis: ‘Teetotal Muslims to blame’ says Tory peer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lord HodgsonA former boss of Midland brewer Marston’s has blamed Britain’s growing Muslim population for the collapse in pub numbers.

Tory peer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts made the claim in a debate on whether to grant more freedom to landlords tied to big firms. He said “socio-economic factors” such as a growing number of teetotal Muslims living in Britain, played a much bigger role in the decline in pubs than “rapacious” chains.

As Robin Hodgson, the politician was MP for Walsall North for three years until he lost the seat at the 1979 general election. He joined the Lords in 2000 and was a director of Wolverhampton-based Marston’s from 2002.

MPs voted through a cross-party amendment to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which would allow tenants to opt out of being required to sell only alcohol provided by their pub company. Business minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the Government would accept the principle of the amendment and seek to make it workable.

But Lord Hodgson said he was “very disappointed” the Government was not going to consider overturning the Commons defeat. The Tory peer said the issue was not as “simple and straightforward” as MPs thought and the pub sector was “under serious strain” for other reasons.

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EDL planning to protest against Dudley mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Dudley protest ad

The English Defence League is planning to return to Dudley in protest at the controversial decision to grant planning permission for a new mosque. The far-right protest group intends to hold a demonstration in the town on February 7 according to one of its Facebook pages.

Dudley Muslim Association is locked in a long battle with Dudley Council over a proposal for a mosque on land off Hall Street. Earlier this month, the association won planning permission for the mosque. But it faces at least two court hearings and legal wrangles lasting at least two years before it can be built. In an attempt to avoid the escalating court costs and resolve community disharmony, Muslim leaders say they will consider alternative sites.

On a Facebook page purporting to belong to the EDL’s Dudley branch two pictures were added, one giving the date of a ‘Dudley Demo’ on the backdrop of a St George’s flag, with ‘no surrender’ written underneath. Another picture has ‘Dudley we are coming’ written on it.

The EDL came to Dudley to demonstrate against the planned mosque in 2010. Violence broke out and parts of the town were brought to a standstill after around 600 followers of the group descended.

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Kennesaw, Georgia: City Council rejects mosque application

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kennesaw anti-mosque protest

The City Council denied a request by Muslim residents to use space in a retail shopping center as a prayer center by a 4-1 vote Monday night, with Councilwoman Cris Eaton-Welsh voting in favor.

Doug Dillard, the attorney representing the applicant, Suffa Dawat Center at Kennesaw, said the council’s denial was a blatant attack on the applicant’s First Amendment rights to practice religion freely.

Dillard said the applicant, Mufti Islam, will fight back, and he has plans to bring a lawsuit against the city. “We think it’s discriminatory, and it violates equal terms,” Dillard said. “They had no reason to deny this.”

Nayyer Islam, who represents the mosque, said they will continue to fight for their right to worship in the retail center. “We’ll follow all the legal ways to continue to get the permit,” Islam said.

Eaton-Welsh said the applicant did everything he could. “I’m saddened,” Eaton-Welsh said. “The amount of anger that has come out of this was not something I ever thought Kennesaw was all about.”

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Britain First are still using fake stories to peddle their ‘message’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First exposes Star City logo
Britain First exposes the Islamification of Star City earlier this year

Britain First are still peddling propaganda videos of their Birmingham branch protesting a ‘Muslim only’ cinema despite the story being rubbished months ago.

Vue Cinema in the Star City entertainment complex was accused of turning away customers based on religion back in July. Leon Jennings claimed he and his friends were denied entry because they “did not look like they celebrated Eid”, a story which was picked up in the Mirror and Daily Mail.

The centre’s manager, however, denied the allegations stating the men had been turned away simply because it was too busy. Local police soon confirmed they had received no complaints into the alleged incident either.

This didn’t stop Britain First leader and self-appointed defender of all things British, Paul Golding, from storming down their with some heavies to confront the manager. In the video, re-posted again on Monday on their Facebook page, the group are allowed into the building with absolutely no incident but they don’t let this little fact get in the way of their mission.

Despite repeatedly denying the incident ever happened, the hapless manager is forced to listen to Golding issue a threat if it ever happens again. After sufficiently intimidating the man the burly group then set about handing out their leaflets to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike who are all quite happily enjoying their day in the centre.

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Answering the attacks on Lutfur Rahman’s administration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur Rahman banner

NEW TORY WAR ON LUTFUR

Stephen Beckett, expelled from Labour for supporting internal party democracy, responds to the attacks on independent Mayor of Tower Hamlets Lutfur Rahman

On 4th November 2014 Eric Pickles, the Tory Communities Secretary, made a statement in the House of Commons regarding Tower Hamlets. His com­ments, using parliamentary privilege, went beyond the findings of the Price Waterhouse Cooper’s (PwC) best value report that was published at the same time. The report, based upon an extend­ed six month intensive audit, found no evidence of fraud or criminality – a bit­ter disappointment to those local politi­cians who have conspired to degrade Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s legitimate democratic mandate.

An episode of Panorama, “The Mayor and Your Money”, was broadcast on 31st March, just a few weeks before the local elections in May. Local Labour and Tory politicians collaborated with the programme-makers hoping it would be able to inflict a fatal blow to Mayor Rahman’s re-election campaign. To strengthen the blow, Eric Pickles commissioned the PwC audit (at a cost of £1.3m to the Council’s already hard hit budget). The blow was the reverse of fatal: Mayor Rahman was re-elected.

In Parliament Eric Pickles conjured up an image of Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman presiding over corrup­tion and pursuing divisive community politics (it was disappointing that Labour MPs joined in). This is not the Tower Hamlets I know. The PwC report has raised questions which deserve to be answered, so let’s get stuck in with some facts.

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Soldier avoids jail after breaking into Chelmsford mosque and stealing Qur’an

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A soldier has walked free from court after breaking into a Chelmsford mosque and stealing a Koran.

Lance Corporal Liam King, 22, of Eastwood Park, Great Baddow, was handed a 12-month jail term, but suspended for two years, at Chelmsford Crown Court today (December 1) for burglary. He was also given a one month jail term, suspended for two years, for a charge of criminal damage.

The Afghanistan veteran, who serves in the Mortar Platoon of the 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, was seen on CCTV trying to break into the Jamia Masjid Mosque in Parkway on Sunday, November 24, last year.

He is seen on CCTV again on Monday, December 16, breaking into the mosque and returning with the £25 holy book. He is seen with two others but only King has appeared before the courts.

King was due to stand trial four weeks ago but changed his pleas to guilty at the eleventh hour.

The Chronicle published CCTV footage from the incidents that week as well as a photo of King wearing an Osama Bin Laden mask while on a stag party in Amsterdam.

Sentencing him today, Mr Recorder Rex Bryan said: “I am going to treat you as being guilty of two pieces of effectively mindless vandalism aggravated by the fact that this is a place of worship.”

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Germany: CDU politician calls for ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Julia KlöcknerA regional official of Germany’s ruling CDU has demanded a ban on burkas in public places. The Rhineland-Palatinate official has reasoned that the veil is more a sign of suppression of women than of religious diversity.

On Monday, Julia Klöckner, deputy chief of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Rhineland-Palatinate, spoke in favor of banning the burka, a head-to-toe veil worn by women in some Islamic cultures that covers the whole body other than the eyes.

She told the German newspaper Rheinische Post that, for her, burkas “did not stand for religious diversity, but for a degrading image of women.” She said that the German constitution emphasized that women and men were of equal value and that “looking at people’s faces” also belonged to the culture of an open society.

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Criminologist receives online threats after publishing research into Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Imran AwanA leading Birmingham criminologist was bombarded with vicious hate mail and violent threats just days after publishing his research into online Islamophobia. One internet troll even accused Imran Awan, of Birmingham City University, of being worse than members of the barbaric jihadist group Islamic State.

Mr Awan said he was shocked by the sheer number of “vitriolic hate-filled” messages he received after an online discussion about his detailed research on anti-Muslim abuse on the internet. He revealed how he received anonymous threats and how one far-right website had even put him “under official investigation” – labelling him a “troublemaker”.

Mr Awan said: “My research attempted to show how hate groups on the internet, especially Twitter, were using this space to intimidate, cause fear and make direct threats against Muslim communities. That has particularly been the case since the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich last year.

“So it’s quite ironic that I became a victim of this type of abuse after I discussed my findings on a popular internet forum earlier this month.”

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Far-right leaders vow to ‘save Europe’ at French gathering

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marine le Pen and Geert Wilders at Lyon conferenceRepresentatives of Eurosceptic and far-right groups from Italy to Bulgaria gathered at the National Front party conference in Lyon at the weekend to warn France and Europe of a “neo-Ottoman” onslaught of Islam-preaching, benefit-stealing migrants.

Digging through the history books, Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), warned that “Arab armies plundered Lyon in 725 and are now busy doing the same in Iraq and Syria”.

Strache went on to blast Europe’s mainstream parties for, among other things, stoking “mass immigration, ideological terror, gay marriage and gender theory”.

The Austrian far-right leader was one of seven foreign politicians invited by the National Front (FN) leader, Marine Le Pen, to showcase her so-called “Europe of nations” – which she hopes to build on the ruins of an increasingly unpopular EU.

“Our Europe stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals, not from Washington to Brussels,” she said, calling for closer ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and an end to “US domination”.

The weekend gathering capped a triumphant year for her party, which romped to victory in European elections with a whopping 25% of the vote.

Should France hold a presidential election next week, polls say Marine Le Pen would thrash her challengers in the first round of voting – but would likely come up short in a runoff vote.

Either way, analysts say there is a very real chance the FN, as it is known in France, may one day wield power in France.

Like the French far right, Le Pen’s foreign guests have thrived on the gloom and anxiety sweeping across Europe in the wake of the financial crisis.

Addressing the FN conference, they treated the audience to a mix of fear-mongering and unbridled optimism, claiming their impending victory would save Europe from the present apocalypse.

First to speak was Geert Wilders, the platinum blond leader of Dutch Islamophobic party PVV, who hailed Marine Le Pen as “France’s next president”.

“Just like you, we don’t want foreigners to tell us they are masters in our country. We say: kick the criminals, the jihadists, the illegal migrants out,” he told the entirely Caucasian audience to rapturous applause.

Wilders, who left without listening to his colleague’s speeches, blasted the “betrayal of our multicultural elites, who destroy our identities and traditions”.

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Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 24‑30 November

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 24-30 November 2014