New York: Man shouting ‘Go back to your (expletive) country’ stabs Muslim food cart vendor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on local law enforcement authorities to thoroughly investigate the Tuesday stabbing of a Muslim food cart vendor by a man reportedly shouting “Go back to your (expletive) country.”

The victim, an Egyptian native who manages a halal (Islamically-permissible) food cart on 28th street near Bellevue Hospital, was stabbed repeatedly in broad daylight on Tuesday afternoon. He told CAIR-NY that he saw a customer arguing with another food cart vendor over a sandwich. When he approached the men engaged in the argument in an effort to calm the situation, the customer faced him and allegedly said, “You don’t belong to this country. Go back to your (expletive) country (expletive),” and stabbed him a total of 15 times.

“We urge law enforcement authorities to investigate this incident thoroughly and to bring the alleged perpetrator to justice,” said CAIR-NY Director of Operations Sadyia Khalique. She added that religious and ethnic bias should be investigated as a factor leading to the attack.

CAIR New York press release, 27 June 2014

Update:  See “Food cart vendor speaking out after attack he calls ‘hate crime’, WABC-TV, 27 June 2014

Trojan Horse: Investigations slammed as ‘provocative’ at Birmingham public meeting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Trojan Horse' public meeting

An alliance of campaigners and parents from schools caught up in allegations of a radical Muslim takeover plot at Birmingham schools have attacked the Government’s “provocative and unhelpful” response.

Measures taken during the investigations, including appointing former counter-terrorism chief Peter Clarke to study claims of extremism in some Birmingham schools, have been criticised by leading campaigner Shabina Bano who claims it is spreading “fear and intimidation” in classrooms.

Two weeks ago the head of Ofsted Sir Michael Wilshaw, concluded there “was a culture of fear and intimidation in some schools” after the publication of an unprecedented series of inspections, triggered by the so-called Trojan Horse claims.

At a meeting on Thursday night at the Bordesley Centre, on Stratford Road in Camp Hill, campaigners said the central claim, contained in the Trojan Horse letter, that there was an extremist agenda remained “unproven” following those inspections.

Ofsted did find some schools were failing adequately to protect pupils from the risks of radicalisation, concluding some governors had exerted undue influence.

At a public meeting attended by up to 1,000 people, Salma Yaqoob, the former leader of Respect, said while there were real issues of poor governance to tackle it was necessary to “de-link this issue from terrorism and radicalisation”.

Campaigners, with the backing of National Union of Teachers’ Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney and former education commissioner Sir Tim Brighouse, have come together under the banner of Putting Birmingham School Kids First, in an effort to “challenge the narrative” which they claim has stigmatised Muslim pupils.

Former counter-terrorism advisor Jahan Mahmood claimed the Government was “shooting itself in the foot” with what he said was a heavy-handed approach. He believes the response of Education Secretary Michael Gove to order Ofsted into 21 city schools, had only increased the risks of young Muslims being radicalised. “Young people will now be Googling extremism,” he said.

He also believes the Government’s counter-terrorism narrative is “confused”. “On one hand, the Government say ‘hey you, Muslim, challenge your young people on the ideology of al-Qaeda’ but then it’s OK (for the Government) to support al Qaeda affiliates in Libya, when tackling Gaddafi?” said Mr Mahmood. “They are now more confused than the extremists,” he joked, earning laughter from the diverse crowd.

Campaigners have said they want to challenge the “ill-informed debate” around the alleged plot, which first surfaced in anonymous letter now widely believed to be a hoax claiming a clique of hardline Muslim governors were attempting to seize control of schools.

“The central allegation that there was an organised plot to radicalise school children in a handful of Birmingham schools, remains unproven,” the campaign’s manifesto stated. “What the Ofsted reports show is some governance issues in some schools.”

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Bendigo mosque a cause celebre for right-wing outsiders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mark WeragodaThe sinister black balloons started appearing in Bendigo in May. Then 10 days ago, a cluster of them were tied to the home and business of a local councillor who supports the building of a controversial mosque.

The councillor, Mark Weragoda, was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Bendigo in the 1980s. He says the unrelenting and increasingly vengeful campaign against the Bendigo mosque – which has been approved by the council but faces a tribunal appeal – is the first time he has faced racial hatred in the regional Victorian city.

When he spoke to the council in favour of the mosque at a heated meeting the night before he found the balloons, protesters played Middle-Eastern music to try to drown him out. He said the balloons didn’t worry him and he felt sorry for the “minority” groups who opposed the mosque on racial and religious grounds rather than for planning reasons.

A week before, The Bendigo Advertiser received an anonymous email headed “Mysterious black balloons revealed”, which said that by accepting Islam into Bendigo, the community would be “endorsing domestic and child abuse” because under sharia law it was acceptable to “marry off child brides, perform genital mutilation, forbidding [sic] women to express themselves, and not being treated as equal to men”.

The email said: “The misconception that it is ‘racist’ to be against the lifestyle of Islam or Muslims is incorrect as it is not a race, whilst Islam is not a religion and cannot be compared to any other religion as it is an ideology.”

Bendigo’s pro-mosque residents tried to nullify the spectacle of the black balloons – a chilling image, like bunches of dead flowers – by tying coloured balloons around the city. But a metal flagpole flying coloured balloons was torn down at a furniture store in the central business district, while the black balloons’ symbolism of hate and vilification remained.

Until now, it has been unclear who was responsible. The likely answer turns out to be instructive because it helps show exactly how extremist far-right groups from outside have managed to infiltrate and hijack a campaign in country Victoria that, until they got involved, was about planning issues.

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Hampstead School governors reject students’ proposal to extend right to religious clothing

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A motion by pupils calling for boys to be allowed to wear religious clothing to school has been rejected.

Hampstead School’s student council requested that boys be allowed to wear “cultural dress to school” including the Islamic Taqiyah cap or prayer robes. But the council was told the idea had been dismissed after being raised with governors.

The uniform policy states that boys are only allowed to wear the Sikh turban or Jewish kippah, though both genders are allowed to wear discreet items of religious jewellery. Female pupils can wear items of cultural dress as long as the school logo is showing. These include the jilbab, a long loose dress worn by some Muslim women, and the kameez, a long tunic worn by Asian women.

Jacques Szemalikowski, who is headteacher at the school in Westbere Road, Cricklewood, said: “All parents and students are aware of our uniform expectations when the join they school.”

Hampstead & Highgate Express, 27 June 2014

Posted in UK

9/11 Museum board member Debra Burlingame to be honored by anti-Islam hate group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ACT! Debra Burlingame (2)

“Brigitte Gabriel’s” [a.k.a – Hanah Kahwagi Tudor] anti-Islam hate group ACT! for America has announced that it will honor September 11 Museum Board Member Debra Burlingame at its upcoming conference in Washington, D.C., to be held on September 11. In recent weeks, mainstream media have focused on Gabriel’s hateful tactics after her berating of a female Muslim attendee at a recent Heritage Foundation event.

Tudor, who goes by the pseudonym “Brigitte Gabriel,” has said Arabs have “no soul” and that Islam is the “real enemy.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists her as one of the “Anti-Islam Inner Circle.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says Gabriel’s beliefs are extreme, while the New York Times described her as an “Islamophobe.”

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France: the need for a united fight against the fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

At the end of May, the Front National results in the European elections sent a shockwave across France. John Mullen looks at the causes of this disaster, and at what can be done.

John Mullen has been active in anticapitalist groups in France since 1986. He is a member, in the Paris region, of Ensemble, an anticapitalist current within the Front de Gauche. He also writes at John Mullen à Montreuil.

Dream Deferred, 25 June 2014

German princess ranted about killing Muslims at St Andrews beer festival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Theodora Sayn-Wittgenstein hiding from photographersA German princess hurled abuse about killing Muslims after drunkenly trying to strip off at a St Andrews beer festival, a court heard.

Her Serene Majesty Theodora Sayn-Wittgenstein – known to friends as Thedi – struggled with police at the Oktoberfest charity event on Kinkell Farm in March, thinking she was being kidnapped. The 27-year-old – who attempted to disguise herself from waiting journalists at Dundee Sheriff Court on Thursday by wearing a wig – was fined a total of £1,000 after admitting four charges.

The court was told Sayn-Wittgenstein had graduated in 2011 from St Andrews University and had returned to the town for a reunion weekend. Security guard Damon Creevy saw the accused at 11.30pm climbing railings at the event, while shouting and removing some of her clothing. When he asked her to replace her clothing and climb down, she refused. She eventually calmed down and was taken to the nearby first aid room.

Fiscal depute Trina Sinclair said: “A security guard, assisted by a first aider, Farah Hussain, tried to replace some of the accused’s clothing. The accused became aggressive and stated ‘I was doing my nails this morning, I was wondering how many Muslims I could kill’.” Miss Hussain left the room in tears, while Sayn-Wittgenstein stood on a chair and began to shout about her human rights.

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Revealed: The secretive Q Society’s battle against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Getting ThroughThey are a group of “concerned citizens”, but are very hesitant to say who they really are. If you want to go to one of their meetings, you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Their only address is a PO Box in suburban Melbourne. They won’t say exactly where their money comes from and say they never will.

And they are very opposed to Islam in Australia.

The secretive organisation known as the Q Society has this week been linked to a noisy campaign to stop the construction of a mosque in Bendigo, Victoria.

Over the past few weeks, some of the town’s businesses and residents have awoken to find black balloons tied up outside their premises as a way of protesting the proposed place of worship.

The $3 million development was approved last week at a raucous council meeting. There were reports indicating the Q Society was a “key force” behind the Bendigo campaign (the organisation says it only held a public meeting and was “not a protest organisation”).

The Q Society – named because the group was founded at a 2010 meeting in the upper class Melbourne suburb of Kew – claims to have members across the country. Its mission is about “educating” people about Islam, spokesman Andrew Horwood said, rather than leading the protests.

They describe themselves as “Islam-critical”, are avowed opponents of sharia law and have published a book Getting Through: How To Talk To Non Muslims About The Disturbing Nature of Islam and produced YouTube videos including “How to stop mosques”.

It has few public faces except for its president, Debbie Robinson, and Mr Horwood. “We’re purely educational,” he told news.com.au.

Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said the group spreads “disturbing, baseless Islamophobia”. “I think most Australians would normally treat them as a joke but because there’s not enough information out there, not enough good information … about Islam, some people unfortunately subscribe to their message.”

The group is affiliated with an global organisation known as Stop The Islamisation of Nations (SION) – which, as the name suggests, is vehemently anti-Islamic.

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