London mosque distances itself from ‘female jihadi’ who worshipped there
A London mosque has distanced itself from one of its former worshippers after she vowed to become the first female jihadi to kill a western prisoner in Syria.
Khadijah Dare, from Lewisham in south-east London, said she wanted to carry out a copycat killing following the brutal murder of American journalist James Foley.
The 22-year-old Londoner, who moved to Syria in 2012 with her Swedish husband and Islamic State fighter Abu Bakr, took to Twitter to praise the killing. She wrote: “Any links 4 da execution of da journalist plz. Allahu Akbar. UK must b shaking up ha ha. I wna b da 1st UK woman 2 kill a UK or US terorrist!”
Dare, who previously posted a picture of her toddler son posing with an AK47 rifle, is thought to have been a regular at the Lewisham Islamic Centre, which was allegedly linked to Michael Adebolajo, the killer of fusilier Lee Rigby.
On Friday a spokesman for the centre said that, had Dare sought advice before travelling to Syria, it would have dissuaded her from “taking the particular action that she did despite us fully understanding why young men and women may be motivated to travel to Syria because of the tragic human suffering taking place there”.
Immigration and multiculturalism led to the murder of James Foley, claims Express columnist
The fact is that extremism has flourished in a climate formed by the twin strategies of mass immigration and multiculturalism. Open borders have led to a phenomenal expansion in Britain’s Muslim population to almost three million, many of the new arrivals hailing from parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia where Islamic sectarianism is rife.
At the same time the dogma of cultural diversity has become one of the central obsessions of the state. We are constantly told that we must celebrate the vibrant enrichment of our society. But, by its emphasis on cultural differences and its loathing for traditional British values the doctrine of diversity has been a catastrophe for Britain.
In place of integration it has promoted division and separatism. We are a land increasingly without a mutual sense of belonging or shared national identity. It is little wonder that, according to one recent survey, 26 per cent of Muslims here said they feel no loyalty to Britain.
Enthusiasts for multi-culturalism love to blather about tolerance, yet it is richly ironic that their pernicious creed has promoted intolerance, misogyny and reactionary oppression. In predominantly Muslim areas diversity means the triumph of the burka, sharia law, fundamentalism in state schools and a reluctance to speak English.
A typical rant from Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 22 August 2014
Khalid Mahmood helps right-wing press whip up Islamophobia
These are the front page headlines from two of today’s newspapers.
The Times headline parrots an earlier Newsweek article entitled “‘Twice as many’ British Muslims fighting for ISIS than in UK armed forces”. The source for this claim is Khalid Mahmood MP, who is a member of the Political Council of the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society and has a record of scaremongering over extremism within the Muslim community, most recently during the so-called “Trojan Horse” witch-hunt of schools in Birmingham.
Mahmood told Newsweek that at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria over the past three years, whereas there are only 600 Muslims serving in the armed forces (the official figure is in fact 640).
There has been a systematic campaign by the British media to exaggerate the threat posed by young Muslims who have left the UK to fight in Syria, but nobody other than Mahmood himself, who offers no evidence at all to back up his claim, has ever suggested there are anything like 1,500 of them.
Muslim women defy threats, violence to wear hijab
When youth worker Sumreen Farooq was abused in a London street, the 18-year-old decided it was time to take a stand – and she started to wear a headscarf.
Farooq is one of many young Muslim women living in Britain who have, for various reasons, chosen to adopt the headscarf to declare their faith to all around them, despite figures showing rising violence against visibly identifiable Muslims.
For despite a common view that young Muslim women are forced to wear veils by men or their families, studies and interviews point to the opposite in Muslim minority countries where it is often the case that the women themselves choose to cover up.
“I’m going to stand out whatever I do, so I might as well wear the headscarf,” said Farooq, a shop assistant who also volunteers at an Islamic youth centre in Leyton, east London.
Reuters reports.
EDL set to march through Bournemouth on Saturday
The English Defence League is planning to march through the centre of Bournemouth on one of the busiest weekends of the year.
The march, planned for this Saturday, is billed as a demonstration against Islamic extremism and could be attended by hundreds of people. In response, members of unions, the National Pensioners’ Convention and the Labour and Green parties have organised an alternative rally to celebrate the town’s diverse culture.
The EDL march will start at 12.30pm outside the Moon in the Square pub and go past the BIC to Pier Approach and up to West Cliff. The counter-protest, involving a number of groups co-ordinated by Unite the Union, plan to meet at Horseshoe Common, taking a proposed route that finishes at Bath Road South car park.
Some disruption is expected between midday and 2pm, although this will be for short periods of time while the marches move through different areas.
Adnan Chaudry, chief officer of the Dorset Race Equality Council, accused the EDL of racism. He said: “We recognise that the EDL is a racist organisation whose main activities are street demonstrations against Muslim communities. They deliberately seek to whip up tension and violence between communities. We’re not going to allow them to divide our communities in Bournemouth.”
The EDL says that it is not a racist organisation and that it is only against “extreme components of Islam”.
David Stokes, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Bournemouth West, will take part in the alternative march. He said: “We are using the slogan ‘We Are Bournemouth’ for our march and rally because we are trying to highlight the fact that Bournemouth is a peaceful multi-cultural place where we welcome people from around the world.”
Fascists unite to oppose mosque in New Addington
Notice announcing the cancellation of the BNP meeting, and Richard Edmonds addressing the audience with Cliff Le May looking on
Last week Labour and Conservative politicians in New Addington, including local Tory MP Gavin Barwell, united to issue an admirably firm statement opposing an anti-mosque campaign by the far-right British National Party. The fascists were not happy. They accused the statement’s signatories of “putting ethnic minority groups before the indigenous Brits” and setting aside their political differences to “conspire on an issue they all very much agree on – the Islamisation of Britain”.
The joint statement was important for its exposure of the BNP’s central role in the anti-mosque campaign, which has reportedly been run by the party’s Croydon & Sutton organiser John Clarke. The BNP itself has tried to play down its involvement, claiming that it was merely responding to a local initiative, having been “approached by concerned residents seeking the BNP’s knowledge and experience in dealing with proposed mosques popping up in every town and village in our green and pleasant land”.
As one of the BNP’s opponents told the Inside Croydon blog: “They are pretending to run a community campaign, claiming it’s not political. They are leafleting, knocking on doors, as well as running a street stall once or twice per week.”
The culmination of the BNP’s fraudulent “community campaign” was to be a public meeting on Sunday at the Addington Community Association centre. However, the ACA cancelled the booking, apparently in response to pressure from Croydon council, leaving the BNP without a venue. But they arrived at the ACA anyway and held their meeting outside the building, self-righteously complaining that they were the innocent victims of an attack on free speech.
Very few of those mythical local residents who had supposedly turned to the BNP for leadership actually turned up for the meeting. Considering that the party claimed to have persuaded two thousand people to sign its anti-mosque petition, and had invited them all to attend, the level of support was derisory. Inside Croydon estimated the numbers at “fewer than 30”. Nor were any “concerned residents” represented on the platform, which consisted of just two speakers, both of them notorious fascists.
Row over French MEP’s Muslim veil comments
A French MEP and former minister has created a storm in France by posting a picture of a veiled woman sitting on a beach and criticising it as an “attack on our culture”.
Nadine Morano, a close ally of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, took a picture of the woman wearing a headscarf and posted it on her Twitter feed and Facebook page next to a famous photo of sex symbol Brigitte Bardot wearing a bikini.
“When one sees this scene, one cannot but help feel an attack on our culture that goes against our sexual equality,” wrote Morano, from the centre-right UMP party.
“If you choose to come to France, a state of law, a secular state, one should respect our culture and women’s rights. If not, go elsewhere!” said Morano, who is well-known for gaffes and outspoken comments.
‘Drunk’ Belgium diplomat specialising in protocol is arrested for tearing full-face veil off a Qatari princess
A senior Belgium diplomat specialising in protocol has been arrested for tearing off the full-face veil of a Qatari princess after she asked him for directions.
In the latest example of the difficulties involved in imposing a so-called “burka ban”, Jean-Marie Pire did not know the identity of the massively wealthy VIP before attacking her.
She approached him with two other women in broad daylight in central Brussels last week, asking for directions to the famous Grand Place. The kind of full face veils favoured by some Muslim women are banned in Belgium, just as they are in neighbouring countries including France.
“I said I don’t talk to anyone if I can’t see their face,” said Mr Pire. “With this reply, I wanted to make it clear that the veil is banned in Belgium. Because the person asking me a question didn’t seem to hear me, I lifted her veil. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but what she did wasn’t legal either!”
The woman, who has not been named, said she suffered cuts and bruises after her earrings were violently dislodged, along with her veil.
France: Mosque desecrated for second time in a year
According to AFP, swastikas, Celtic crosses, and slices of ham were found on the walls of the mosque in Cognac on Sunday.
The same source said that the imam of the mosque discovered the misdeeds early Monday morning when the went to the mosque to perform the Fajr prayer, the first prayer of the day.
Abdallah Zekri, President of the National Observatory Against Islamophobia, a component of the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM), told AFP that “slices of ham were spread on the steps of the entry and two crosses painted on the walls.” “This is the same group wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the degradation of the mosque last year,” Zekri estimated, confirming that a complaint was filed.