Mushy Peas takes on the Secretary of State for Education over his conception of “British values”.
Protest rally staged in Bulgaria capital against returning properties to Grand Mufti’s Office
Some 60 people stated a protest rally in front of Sofia Court House in the capital city Sofia against returning the mosque in the city of Kyustendil and other properties to the Grand Mufti’s Office, FOCUS News Agency reported. Football fans, Mayor of Kyustendil, Petar Paunov, angry citizens, and others took part in the demonstration. They carried posters reading “Let us save Bulgarian cultural monuments” and “Europe with museums, not mosques, no to Islamisation”.
A Muslim reporter’s icy welcome from Texas GOP: ‘Where are you from?’
Even conservatives were quick to criticize a Keller school trustee’s bigotry. But while most of north Tarrant County denounced Jo Lynn Haussmann’s Muslim-bashing last week, another story unfolded in downtown Fort Worth.
UT Arlington senior Heba Said, opinion editor of The Shorthorn, wrote Wednesday about the disgusted looks and comments of “you people” and “y’all Muslims” directed her way as she covered the Republican state convention.
In one panel session, a prominent official of the Republican Party of Texas repeatedly described all Muslims as Islamists. At an autograph event for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Fort Worth police circled Said and then followed her.
Said, 22, is a star student, a Texan and a graduate of Trinity High School in Euless, one of the nation’s most diverse and successful schools. Her column answered convention delegates’ persistent question, “Where are you from?” “I am an American,” she wrote. “The question is, are you?”
Said’s appehension about the convention was borne out, she wrote: “I discovered a cult-like hatred that is simply disgusting.”
Qur’ans burned in front of Dearborn mosque
Several Qurans were burned in front of a Dearborn mosque yesterday in possible connection with anti-Islam Pastor Terry Jones’ visit to the city on Saturday.
The three books were burned in front of the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center, 15332 West Warren Ave. The imam of the mosque, Sheikh Husham Al-Husainy, confirmed that the incident occurred and that police are investigating.
Al-Husainy said he met with public safety officials, including the FBI and Dearborn’s police chief, yesterday. “I’ve been in this mosque for 20 years, and this never happened,” Al-Husainy said.
A group of local imams are convening tonight in Dearborn to discuss how to handle the situation.
Man forces his way into home, terrorizes family from Iraq
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A woman may have been the victim of a hate crime. Police said the woman is from Iraq, and the man who beat her did because he thought she was a Muslim. She is actually Catholic.
The man forced his way into her family’s apartment off Montgomery Boulevard. Investigators said he punched the woman in the face while screaming, “I hate Muslims.” He then stole cash and gold from the home, and ripped the family’s citizenship papers into pieces.
Police think the man targeted the family. “This is a family that fled Iraq in 2007 because of religious persecution. This family is not Muslim. They’re Catholic and they fled because they were being tormented in their own county,” Officer Simon Drobik said.
The woman did not get a clear description of the man. Police think he may belong to an extremist group.
KOAT Albuquerque, 12 June 2014
See also “Woman attacked, target of violent hate crime”, KRQE News 13, 11 June 2014
Update: See “Iraqi Catholic terrorized in ABQ home”, Albuquerque Journal, 13 June 2014
Virginia church offends Muslims with pamphlet that says they’re going to hell, need Jesus Christ
A Virginia church has generated a lot of controversy over its distribution of a pamphlet that some claim wrongly stereotypes Muslims.
Bible Baptist Church of Roanoke made local news when some in the city’s Muslim community expressed concern over the distribution of a pamphlet on Islam. Titled “Unforgiven?” the pamphlet was created by Chick Publications, a fundamentalist Christian evangelism outlet.
In an interview with local media, Roanoke resident Hussain Al-Shiblawi said the messages in the pamphlet suggest that Muslims are violent and are condemned to hell. “It basically indicated that the people are violent, the religion itself is violent, and the facts in here are not true,” said Al-Shiblawi to WBDJ 7 news.
“It shows him trying to kill his grandmother, saying, ‘If you weren’t my grandma, I’d kill you where you stand, Allahu Akbar’ … Read it before you hand it out, read it. Even though you don’t write it, you still hand it out.”
Al-Shiblawi also said that Bible Baptist Church regularly distributes Christian material to the community on Sundays, which he finds inspirational, but he’s deeply offended by the “Unforgiven?” pamphlet.
“Unforgiven?” is designed as a comic story, featuring a black man who converts to Islam while in prison after being threatened with physical violence. The man proceeds to fully embrace an extreme form of Islam, while his Christian grandmother attempts to prove his beliefs wrong by showing him that Christianity, and belief in Jesus Christ, is the only way.
The grandmother fails, however, and the final images in the comic strip show the man being condemned to hell. The final page has a message about the need to accept Jesus Christ and the Bible.
In the so-called ‘Trojan horse’ debacle, Birmingham schools have become Gove’s sacrificial lamb
The problem in these schools is not an issue of radicalisation, argues Myriam Francois-Cerrah.
Spectator disgraces itself with Islamophobic cover
This is the cover to this week’s Spectator. A cartoon of a frightened child clutching the Qur’an in one hand and a scimitar in the other. How could Spectator editor Fraser Nelson possibly have thought that was a good idea?
As you can see, the main article in the magazine is by the raving neocon, Douglas (“conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”) Murray, who Nelson apparently thinks is an entirely appropriate person to lead the Spectator‘s commentary on the so-called “Trojan horse” controversy.
Not only that, but Murray’s piece is followed by an article from Innes Bowen claiming that almost half of British mosques are run by co-thinkers of the Taliban.
The issue also contains an entirely sensible article by Matthew Parris entitled “This ‘Islamist conspiracy’ is WMD all over again”, which argues that the “Trojan horse” affair looks very much like a repetition of the neocon propaganda that provided the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Good for Matthew Parris.
But Fraser Nelson saw fit to bury that article on page 27 and omit any reference at all to it on the cover. He evidently thought it more important to promote a piece calling for support for England football team manager Roy Hodgson.
Allison Pearson thinks she’s culturally superior to Muslims
Let me quote Myriam Francois-Cerrah, a writer and Muslim convert, who told Channel 4 News on Tuesday that she rejected calls by the Prime Minister and Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, for schools to promote British values. “In many ways, the problem is creating a hierarchy of cultures when you say you need to promote British values,” she objected. “What does that say to children in a classroom whose heritage harks from outside the British Isles? It says this country has superior moral values and you are coming from some backward culture whose values you … must not consider equal to our own.”
Funnily enough, that’s exactly what we are saying, Myriam. Spot on!
Allison Pearson offers her thoughts (using that word in its loosest possible sense) on the “Trojan horse” witch-hunt.
Bradford school drawn into Islam row as reports surface of gender segregation
A Bradford school has been drawn into the row over claims that governing bodies are attempting to pursue an Islamic agenda at state schools.
It has been reported that minutes from governing body meetings at Carlton Bolling College showed that governors had regularly asked whether a broad religious agenda met the spiritual needs of students. It also reported gender segregation had taken place for trips at the Bradford secondary schools
However the school’s chairman of governors in Bradford has said attempts to link his school and the city to the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” controversy “feels like a witch hunt”. Faisal Khan was speaking following reports relating to two Bradford schools – Carlton Bolling College and Laisterdyke Business and Enterprise College – neither of which are Muslim faith schools.
Mr Khan, who is chairman of governors at Carlton Bolling and a former Respect councillor who now sits on Bradford Council as an independent, said suggestions the governing body was trying to impose a strict Islamic ethos on the school were wrong.
“It’s just completely false,” he said. “It feels like a witch hunt. We’re a good school and we’re proud of the students and the staff and I think all this is just mischief-making. People need to just stand back and take a level headed approach rather than just try and destroy all this.”