Councillors who voted in favour of Currumbin mosque receive death threats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stop the mosque at currumbin 'Traitors'
Far-right anti-mosque campaign whips up hatred against Currumbin councillors

Police are investigating death threats made against Gold Coast councillors who voted to support the controversial Currumbin mosque. Threatening phone messages were left at offices of northern Gold Coast councillors William Owen-Jones and Cameron Caldwell just after noon yesterday.

Police told the Bulletin the threats were of a “non-specific” nature but related to both councillors supporting the approval of the mosque at Wednesday’s planning committee meeting. They were among five councillors who voted to support the project, including Lex Bell, Greg Betts and Donna Gates.

The Bulletin understands both councillors were interviewed by police late yesterday and Cr Owen-Jones has declined to make a complaint. It is understood the person suspected of making the threats is known to councillors but both Cr Owen-Jones and Cr Caldwell declined to comment.

Queensland Police confirmed threats had been made and said the investigation was ongoing. Threatening a public official is a crime in Queensland.

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Social justice groups join together to condemn Oklahoma lawmaker’s anti-Muslim comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oklahoma press conference condemns John BennettSeveral social justice groups joined together Wednesday to denounce anti-Muslim comments made by a state legislator – and the leader of one advocacy organization called for the lawmaker’s immediate resignation.

However, state Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, said he has no intention of resigning. “I stand behind what I said, and I’m sure not going to resign,” Bennett said Wednesday in a phone interview with The Oklahoman.

Last week, the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized Bennett and asked him to apologize for his Facebook post saying people should be wary of those who say they are “Muslim American.”

“Be especially wary if you’re a Christian,” he said in the post, which links to a story about atrocities committed by the Islamic State group known as ISIS. “The Quran clearly states that non-Muslims should be killed.”

At a news conference hosted Wednesday by CAIR-OK, several representatives of local social justice groups and faith organizations also called for Bennett to apologize for his remarks.

Adam Soltani, executive director of CAIR-OK, also said they are asking the national GOP to repudiate Bennett’s remarks and those of state Republican Party Chairman David Weston, who weighed in on the controversy last week. “His track record is clear – he has an agenda of hate and a fear of Islam in our state,” Soltani said of Bennett.

However, Anthony Douglas, president of the Oklahoma chapter of the NAACP, said an apology from Bennett will not go far enough to rectify the matter. Wednesday, Douglas said Bennett should resign because he can no longer effectively represent all of his constituents because of his bigoted remarks.

“He took an oath of office and based on his oath of office, he is a representative 24 hours a day, not just when we go back into legislative session,” Douglas said. “How are you going to be a representative representing your district and yet you put fear in the hearts of your neighbors that live in the district? He can no longer effectively represent the people of his district, based on his statements against the Muslim community.”

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Fred Nile move to ban burqa ‘anti-Islamic’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CDP ban face-coveringsChristian Democratic Party leader Fred Nile’s latest attempt to ban the burqa across NSW has been branded anti-Islamic and a political stunt.

Mr Nile’s private member’s bill, introduced in state parliament on Thursday, would prohibit the wearing of the burqa and other face coverings in public. It follows similar bans in Belgium and France, and comes after his failed attempt at blacklisting face coverings in 2010.

While Mr Nile stressed that his bill’s text did not include the words “burqa or Muslim”, much of his speech to parliament about the plan focused on the burqa.

He says the measures come at an “opportune” time after Wednesday’s arrest in Queensland of two men allegedly linked to terrorist groups in Syria. “We also face the new Islamic State (IS) terrorist threat, whose black uniforms for both men and women include face coverings to prevent identification,” he told the upper house.

Labor MP Amanda Fazio said the measures were “anti-Islamic” and had more to do with Mr Nile’s bid for re-election in March. “These measures are the opposite of everything we’re trying to achieve in Australia in terms of being inclusive and having a harmonious society where we respect difference,” she told AAP.

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Another hysterical anti-mosque campaign in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Currumbin anti-mosque protest

Gold Coast leaders say a radical anti-Islamic “redneck movement” is damaging the city’s reputation and putting its $4.2 billion tourism industry at risk.

State Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey last night black-listed the public outpouring against the background of an application to build a mosque in Currumbin. “I am deeply disappointed by this because this [protest] does not represent the people of the Gold Coast or the people of my electorate and are is not helping anyone’s cause,” she said.

More than 100 people yesterday attended the heated protest at Evandale yesterday, where the city’s planning committee recommended approving the application to build the mosque. Placards from the protest decrying Sharia law and invoking images of the beheading of US journalists in Iraq by members of Islamic State were beamed worldwide. The banners included: “Super mosque today, Sharia Law and ISIS tomorrow, beheadings the next”; “Team Australia Vs Team Terror: Aussies rule” and “burqua (sic) or bikinis – you decide”.

Protesters heard former Whitlam era political cartoonist and Gold Coast resident Larry Pickering argue that the dispute was not about town planning issues. “It is not about carparks or proximity to houses. It is about what we don’t want to be a part of Australian culture and until those bastards in there are honest about it then we will not take a step forward,” Mr Pickering said. “Sharia is the most evil of all laws. This is Australia for Christ sake. Why are we allowing this?”

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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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US banks shut Muslims’ accounts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ChaseUS Muslims have been receiving letters from their banks from Washington to Florida, notifying them that their accounts will be closed soon, moves decried by Muslim civil rights group as motivated by racist policies.

“We never understood what’s going on,” said AbdulHyee Waqas, who had his Bellevue, Washington, nonprofit group’s account closed, told Los Angeles Times. “We had been a good customer. It was very disheartening.”

Last year, reports surfaced that Iranian students studying at the University of Minnesota had their accounts closed. Now banks appear to be closing the accounts of people who have connections to Kuwait and Syria.

Florida businessman Sofian Zakout had barely opened his new accounts at Chase Bank when he received a letter stating that both his personal and business accounts were being closed. “To shut me down – this is not good,” Zakout told the Times. “This kind of prejudice is not acceptable.”

Zakout runs American Muslims for Emergency and Relief Inc., which has helped victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as the civil war in Syria. “Usually nonprofit and charitable organizations are scared to publicize such things,” he told the Times of the account closures. “I’m not going to be quiet. I don’t want to see this happening to anyone again.”

The bank offered no explanation to Zakout.

Another Minneapolis dentist applied at TCF Bank last summer, offering a detailed explanation of all his transactions. However, the shocking response came as: Sorry, we’re not interested in your business. “I don’t see why there would be a red flag on anything I performed,” said the dentist, a Kuwait native who requested anonymity for fear of retribution from his current bank. “Maybe they have something I’m not aware of, but they said they couldn’t say anything.”

With no explanation offered from the banks, a Florida attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has submitted a complaint to the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

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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’

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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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Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 1‑7 September

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 1-7 September 2014