Islamophobia Watch

Four Thai Muslims have been acquitted of belonging to extremist group Jemaah Islamiah and plotting bomb attacks against Western embassies in Thailand. The high-profile case was dismissed after a Bangkok court found a lack of evidence against the men.

BBC News, 1 June 2005

Last year their lawyer, the prominent Muslim human rights activist Somchai Neelahphaijit, went missing after receiving death threats.

See BBC News, 18 March 2004

"The detention facilities at Guantánamo, including Camp X-ray and Camp Delta, were constructed specifically to house individuals apprehended in the war on terror. Enemy combatants held at the camp must be foreign nationals who have either received training from al Qaeda, or who have been in command of 300 or more military personnel. They are among the world's most brutal and committed Islamist enemies of the United States. By incarcerating and interrogating them, the U.S. hopes to gain crucial intelligence that could thwart future terrorist attacks against America and to keep them from returning to the terror war against the United States."

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Muslim communities must "shout out" against violent terrorists who "tarnish their religion", former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson has said. But Muslim Council of Britain secretary general Iqbal Sacranie told BBC News: "British Muslims have repeatedly made clear they condemn acts of terrorism absolutely. Islam categorically forbids the taking of innocent lives." It was "odd" Lord Robertson had made this "surprising and unfortunate" call to Muslims rather than to the countries continuing the "illegal war against Iraq ... in defiance of world opinion", Mr Sacranie added. "This war has killed thousands of civilians and given rise in Iraq to the terrible crimes Lord Robertson wants us all to condemn."

BBC News, 1 June 2005

AMSTERDAM — Den Bosch Court sentenced five teenage boys to community work orders and suspended jail terms for arson attacks at an Islamic school and mosque in Uden last year. The Bedir primary school was completely destroyed when it was torched on 9 November last year, while the arson attack at the mosque three days earlier failed to set fire to the building. The public prosecutor had demanded a 240-day jail term, 202 of which would have been suspended to take account of the amount of time the Uden youths had spent on remand detention.

Expatica, 1 June 2005

"The world's largest religion is now number one faith in Greater Manchester. This is the conclusion which could be drawn from last weekend's distinctly non-British spectacle when the city's first Islamic Mayor was inaugurated in the city chambers.

"The ceremony on May 22nd appeared as if would be more suitable at home in the Middle East or Pakistan, than Britain’s third largest city. The swearing in of mayor Afzal Khan took place against a background chanting of 'Tala Al-Badru Alayna' sung in Arabic and was followed by recitations from the Koran. Only after this clear mark of an alien faith was stamped on the proceedings were prayers said, 'of other religions'."

BNP news article, 1 June 2005

US President George Bush has dismissed as "absurd" an Amnesty International report that said the US was setting back the cause of human rights. The human rights group described the US Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba as "the gulag of our time". There have been allegations that guards at the camp had desecrated the Koran, prompting protests in Muslim countries. But Mr Bush said on Tuesday: "The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world."

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"British Laborite and progressive George Galloway calls for a formal uniting of the left in the West with the Islamic jihadists in the war on terror. Lawyers led by anti-American, pro-Communist, jihad sympathizer Michael Ratner descend on Guantánamo."

David Horowitz claims vindication for the thesis presented in his book Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left that "the progressive left in the West was in a de facto alliance with the Islamic jihadists".

Front Page Magazine, 31 May 2005

An international human rights watchdog said on Tuesday, May 31, that the European Union’s awkward anti-terror policies have led to breaches of human rights. The EU launched a drive against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks and stepped it up after the Madrid train bombings 14 months ago. Muslim minorities have taken the brunt of the anti-terror measures, which include predawn raids and stop-and-search campaigns, for no reason other than being Muslims.

Islam Online, 31 May 2005

See also Amnesty International press release, 31 May 2005

"Political correctness is turning lethal. Stockport Council is now using resource packs provided by the Muslim Council of Britain to teach schoolchildren about Islam, an initiative which is to be extended across the nation." Melanie Phillips in another frothing-at-the-mouth attack on the MCB.

Melanie Phillips's Diary, 30 May 2005

Here's a further reason why it would be a mistake to dismiss Robert Spencer as a politically marginal fruitcake. Mad Mel (whose views reach a mass audience via her Daily Mail column) not only bases her article on a post from Spencer's weblog (see here), she even borrows the title for her article from him – "Dhimmi Britain".

Spencer, for his part, reciprocates with a tribute to "the incomparable Melanie Phillips".

Dhimmi Watch, 30 May 2005

For a reply to Phillips by Yusuf Smith, see Indigo Jo weblog, 30 May 2005

"I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists." Robert Spencer spells it out.

Jihad Watch, 30 May 2005

This is the man who has also written: "Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence." See here

So, while it's tempting to dismiss Spencer as an irrelevant right-wing crank, his pious declarations that he doesn't regard all Muslims as terrorists, accompanied by more hardline statements that this is exactly what he does think they are, presents in a particularly crude and transparent form the sort of double-talk we hear from more sophisticated Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes.

For Spencer's response, see here