Dawkins joins far right in denouncing prison sentences for SDL hooligans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yesterday Scottish Defence League supporters Chelsea Lambie and Douglas Cruikshank were jailed for behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm after being convicted of desecrating Edinburgh Central Mosque with bacon.

Both Lambie and Cruikshank, it should be noted, had previous convictions for threatening and abusive behaviour, which undoubtedly contributed to the judge’s decision to impose custodial sentences. Cruikshank got 9 months as against Lambie’s 12 months because unlike her he had the sense to plead guilty.

Lambie and Cruikshank do however have their defenders, who are outraged that they should receive prison sentences or even have been charged at all.

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Wooden cross hung at mosque in Bulgaria

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gotze Delchev mosque crossA two-meter tall wooden cross was hung in a mosque in a provocative act by unknown intruders on Friday. The incident took place at Karaca Pasha mosque in the southern town of Gotze Delchev, 200km from Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.

In a statement strongly condemning the attack, the Regional Office of Mufti in Blagoevgrad said: “The incidents which trigger dispute among religions and directly threaten national security should be investigated and offenders should be brought to justice.”

The regional office also said similar attacks had happened recently and called for adequate protection against potential future attacks.

World Bulletin, 20 June 2014

Scottish Defence League supporters locked up for attacking mosque with bacon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chelsea Lambie and Douglas CruickshankA teenage girl and 39-year old man, who desecrated a mosque by attacking it with strips of bacon, have both been given custodial sentences.

Eighteen-year old Chelsea Lambie from Paisley and Douglas Cruikshank from Galashiels, were told by Sheriff Alistair Noble, sitting in Edinburgh: “It does not seem to me there is any way to deal with this case other than by custody”.

In April of this year, the pair had denied behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm in the early hours of January 31 last year, when along with another person, they wrapped bacon around the main door handles of the Central Mosque in Edinburgh’s Potterrow and threw bacon into the premises. The Crown claimed the offence was racially aggravated.

During the five day trial, a security guard at the mosque, 34-year old Usman Mahmood, told the jury of eight women and seven men: “I was surprised if a person did it for a joke. It is against our culture and religion. We do not eat pork or even touch it. I felt very bad seeing this meat in my sacred place. It hurt my feelings when I saw this meat hanging inside the mosque in the worshipping area. It was very disturbing”. He added that the situation could have been “much worse” if there had been more people in the mosque. There was only one man in the prayer room at the time.

On the final day of evidence, after representations by defence lawyers, Sheriff Alastair Noble deleted the racial aggravation from the indictment and Cruikshank pled guilty to the amended indictment. Lambie continued to deny the charge.

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Bendigo mosque: Black balloons hung outside councillor’s house

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mark WeragodaA Bendigo councillor has had black balloons hung outside his house as part of a campaign against plans to build the city’s first mosque.

Councillor Mark Weragoda said his Sri Lankan heritage has been targeted in reaction to the council’s approval of the mosque at a rowdy meeting on Wednesday night. “Outside the actual chamber there was a little bit of abuse,” Cr Weragoda said. “I know one person yelled out to me, saying, ‘we don’t want you here’.”

The campaign against the mosque has included the hanging of black balloons throughout the city over the past couple of weeks. It is expected objectors will take their fight against the plans to Victoria’s planning tribunal, VCAT.

Cr Weagoda said the backlash against plans for the city’s first mosque has been a challenging experience. “We’ve got one of the best, best cities in the world and you come back and there’s a minority group who are a little disrespectful, that’s the disappointing thing,” he said.

ABC News, 20 June 2014

See also “‘Symbol of hatred’ leaves councillor shaken”, Bendigo Advertiser, 19 June 2014

More anti-mosque hysteria in Bolton

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Taiyabah Islamic Centre plan (2)“Plans for new ‘super’ mosque in Astley Bridge” – that’s the headline to a report in the Bolton News this week. The article begins: “A HUGE new mosque is planned for Bolton.” And readers are told: “The development will cater for more than 1,000 prayer mats in the mosque building.”

True, the report goes on to quote support for the planning application from local councillors and a statement by the architect that the new building is intended to “play a part in bridging the gap between the negative perceptions of Islam and the true meaning of Islam”. But the impact of the headline and introduction to the story is clearly to reinforce an “Islamification of Britain” narrative.

Only last month a plan for a mosque expansion on a much smaller scale elsewhere in Bolton provoked threats of violence and an intervention by the far right. So it was entirely predictable that the Bolton News report would result in an outburst of right-wing Islamophobic hysteria. And so it proved. After a day deleting offensive and abusive posts from readers the Bolton News was forced to close comments on the article.

A more responsible report of the plan would have emphasised that the Taiyabah Islamic Centre, the organisation responsible for the proposed development, already owns a large complex of buildings in Draycott Street and Blackburn Road from which it has operated since 1988. The existing mosque has places for 700 worshippers. So the “huge new mosque” doesn’t represent such a dramatic transformation of the situation as the Bolton News article suggests.

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Murfreesboro mosque opponents suffer another defeat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Davidson County judge Thursday upheld a decision by the Rutherford County Board of Zoning Appeals allowing burials at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro site. Senior Judge Paul Summers, who heard the matter after all local judges recused themselves, dismissed a case filed by a group of residents opposed to the county-approved cemetery just off Veals Road at Bradyville Pike.

“The Rutherford County Board of Zoning Appeals did not act illegally, arbitrarily, or capriciously by approving the special use exception permit for the cemetery,” the judge concluded. The judge found that the petitioners, led by Bonnie Golczynski, showed “no distinct and palpable injury” and, therefore, had no standing.

Summers also ruled that the BZA complied with adequate notice requirements for the Open Meetings Act for December 2013 and January 2014 meetings. He concluded that a special use permit issued for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro is valid and denied the petitioner’s request for the BZA to rehear the matter. In addition, Summers dismissed all other claims of the petitioners and assessed them court costs.

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Reykjavík councillor disavows Islamophobes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sveinbjörg Birna SveinbjörnsdóttirProgressive city councilperson Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir says she will not fight against a mosque in Reykjavík, and that Islamophobes who voted for her “bet on the wrong horse”.

“I find this really distressing,” Sveinbjörg told Rás 2 listeners yesterday morning, DV reports. “[The Progressives] were not trying to buy votes. [Opposition to a mosque] was not a campaign issue of the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, nor the Progressive Party as a whole. This is not in the Progressive Party platform. This was just something I said in half-carelessness. I’m not excusing myself, I’m just explaining how it was,” adding that she was only meaning to question whether Reykjavík had the authority to give religious groups free plots of land.

For the record, Sveinbjörg’s actual remarks on the matter, made one week before municipal elections, were the following: “As long as we have a national church, we should not grant plots of land for buildings such as mosques or for Greek Orthodox churches. … I lived in Saudi Arabia for about a year. My opinion is not based on prejudice, but on experience. I have, for example, just returned from one of the biggest mosques in the world, in Abu Dhabi. There are no churches there. I respect the values of other countries, and think this is a given.”

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Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark banned from protesting at Copenhagen mosque opening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The anti-Islam organisation Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark (SIAD) has been told by police to stay away when Denmark’s first grand mosque opens its doors for the first time today in Copenhagen.

The organisation had asked the police for permission for a non-violent demonstration in front of the mosque – located on Rovsingsgade on the border of the city’s Østerbro and Nørrebro districts – but the police rejected its application.

The police cited that they feared that the demonstration in front of the mosque would lead to personal attacks and vandalism, and that there would be a “considerable risk that public peace would be compromised”, they told SIAD in an email. Instead the police referred the about 50-person demonstration to outside the front of parliament at Christianborg – a proposal that SIAD rejected.

“We could just have well have done it at Thorsø Station then,” Anders Gravers, the chairman and founder of SIAD, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “We wanted this to happen in front of the mosque.”

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Bendigo mosque approved amid local protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bendigo mosque protestorsA Victorian council has approved the construction of a $3 million mosque in the regional centre of Bendigo despite fierce opposition from local residents.

More than 200 protestors packed a City of Greater Bendigo meeting on Wednesday night, heckling councillors, and calling on them to reject the plans. The proposal for the $3 million mosque, which includes two prayer rooms, a shop and a community sports hall, received more than 400 letters of objection, with more than half of them based on religious grounds.

Bendigo Councillor Elise Chapman says many residents are worried about an “influx” of Muslims in their area. “This isn’t about racism. This isn’t about bigotry. It’s genuine concern,” she told SBS.

Council documents show the majority of complaints related to concerns over the influence of Islam, citing the threat of terrorism, the introduction of Sharia and the dilution of “Christian values”.

But Ms Chapman says safety concerns were among the objections, citing a 2011 case that came before the Melbourne County Court in which a young woman was raped by a group of young men at Flora Hill. “I’ve received numerous pleas from women about their safety. The people are concerned,” she said.

A campaign on Facebook to “stop the Mosque in Bendigo” has so far attracted more than 7,000 likes. The page features photographs of the Bendigo councillors who approved the plans, labelling them “traitors”.

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