Islamophobia Watch

Community Secretary Hazel Blears stood accused of "scapegoating" immigrants and Muslim groups on Thursday for what she called the development of "social apartheid" in Britain.

In a speech to the Fabian Society in Westminster, Ms Blears claimed that community cohesion could only be maintained by preventing one single faith or ethnic group from dominating a neighbourhood to the extent that others feel "alienated, insecure or unsafe." However, the minister said that she saw "nothing wrong" with cultural enclaves of "particular groups" such as "Chinatowns and Little Italys."

Her comments follow Church of England Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali's recent attack on the Muslim communities for supposedly creating "no-go zones" for whites in parts of Britain.

Furious left campaigners and politicians dismissed Ms Blears's seeming concern as "beyond satire" when "no-one has done more" than new Labour to create poor and ethnic minority ghettos through its big-business policies and anti-terror laws.

Morning Star, 4 April 2008

See also the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Mail.

Katherine Jenkins's representatives last night confirmed they had started legal action to remove the singer's image from an online video produced in support of the extremist British National Party. In a four-minute video posted on website YouTube on March 8, by a user calling himself "Egbert Saxon King", the Welsh mezzo-soprano's image is used in a bid to stir up opposition to plans to build Wales' largest mosque in Cardiff.

Featuring designs apparently lifted from the website of the Madina Mosque in the Cathays area of the capital, the video claims the mosque would lead to the "Islamification of Wales" and uses a series of dramatic images to contrast stereotypical images of Muslims with stereotypical images of Wales. An image of riots in Bradford, for instance, is contrasted with a tranquil North Wales street market scene.

Viewers are then shown a picture of a woman in traditional Islamic dress, and a picture of Miss Jenkins wearing a Welsh rugby shirt. They are then asked which they would prefer. The video ends with an image of a BNP badge and the text "vote BNP".

A member of Miss Jenkins's management team said, "Katherine wants to have absolutely nothing to do with these people. We are trying to trace how someone got the picture. It was not passed on by the photographer or his agent. It is just stirring things up and we are striving to have the image removed."

Western Mail, 4 April 2008

Writing in the Louisiana State University newspaper The Daily Reveille, Shirien Elmasraya proposes to her fellow students that they should share her experience of wearing Islamic clothing:

"Ever wonder what it's like for women that wear hijab – or the head scarf? I certainly get some crazy questions sometimes. 'Do you take a shower with that on?' is pretty common. And so is, 'Do you wear that because you're bald?' That one's my favorite. I certainly don't mind the questions, and I am happy to answer them whenever I get them. But, now it's your turn. I challenge the women on this campus to walk a day in my shoes. I challenge women to wear hijab for a whole day on April 25, 2008 and then talk about the experience afterward."

"... it's the future of our children that I believe is the most important issue people should have on their minds when they vote on May 1st. The two photos are of schoolchildren from Yeovil in Somerset visiting a mosque, and children in an Easter bonnet parade organised by local BNP councillors in Broxtowe. Voters have got to decide which road they want this country to go down because in a few years time we might not be able to make a choice.

"With the building of new mosques becoming an issue for many local authorities, it is vital that there are BNP representatives on councils to 'whistleblow' when the 'Old Gang' parties try to usher these applications through with out consulting with the public."

Voice of Freedom editor Martin Wingfield plugs the next issue of the British National Party's paper.

Martin Wingfield's blog, 4 April 2008
 

"Some analysts of Islam in Western Europe argue that the continent cannot escape its Eurabian fate; that the trend lines of the past half-century will continue until Muslims become a majority population and Islamic law (the Shari'a) reigns.

"I disagree, arguing that there is another route the continent might take, one of resistance to Islamification and a reassertion of traditional ways. Indigenous Europeans – who make up 95 percent of the population – can insist on their historic customs and mores. Were they to do so, nothing would be in their way and no one could stop them.

"Indeed, Europeans are visibly showing signs of impatience with creeping Shari'a. The legislation in France that prohibits hijabs from public school classrooms signals the reluctance to accept Islamic ways, as are related efforts to ban burkas, mosques and minarets. Throughout Western Europe, anti-immigrant parties are generally increasing in popularity."

Daniel Pipes in the Jerusalem Post, 2 April 2008

Pipes names Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders as one of the "staunch individuals" who "may represent the vanguard of a Christian/liberal reassertion of European values" and who could "provide a crucial boost for those intent on maintaining the continent's historic identity".

"If you've seen Geert Wilders's film Fitna, you may not have noticed a single headline amongst all the bombings, beheadings, and earnest expressions of Islam's eventual world domination: Halal-fund: investments for Muslims. But the investment vehicles referenced are an essential part of radical Islam's efforts to insinuate itself into Western societies in order to destroy them from within. And Wall Street, barely out of the woods from its disastrous run-in with sub-prime mortgages – and having lost one of its historic investment houses, Bear Stearns, in the process – is now chasing the very kind of 'sharia finance' against which Wilders's movie warns, a business line that may eventually wind up being even more calamitous than the subprime-mortgage fiasco....

"Sharia is a reactionary-to-the-core medieval Islamic doctrine that claims control over every aspect of every Muslim's life. It imposes such 'ethical' mandates on Muslims as the obligation to discriminate against women and non-Muslims; to kill homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates; to establish and maintain Muslim rule around the world; and to carry out violent offensive jihad against infidels. Notably, for those Muslims who cannot engage in physical jihad using force of arms, sharia requires that they support jihad financially. This is what sharia finance is all about."

Alex Alexiev at National Review Online, 3 April 2008

Update:   Mad Melanie Phillips entirely agrees: "Of all the manifestations of the Islamisation of the west sharia finance is perhaps the most deadly, because it effectively sells the west to Islam."

Melanie Phillips's blog, 7 April 2008

"Incredible headlines in the tabloids today concerning Brown's arrogance over immigration and his insistence on pushing ahead with replacing the indigenous population with Labour-voting imports.... As if it couldn't get any better a member of the Church of England General Synod, Alison Ruoff, breaks ranks and demands that no more mosques are built in this country.

"Speaking on a Christian radio station she pulled no punches when stating: 'You build a mosque and then what happens? You have Muslim people moving into that area, all the shops will then become Islamic, all the housing will then become Islamic and as the Bishop of Rochester has so wisely pointed out, that will be a no-go area for anyone else. They will bring in Islamic law. We cannot allow that to happen.'

"Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, wasted no time in tagging the issue for the Party adding, 'These are unfortunately very bigoted and, frankly, xenophobic remarks. These kinds of comments you would expect to come from someone from the BNP not the Church.' Yes indeed so Inayat and thank you so very much for reminding everybody just in case they hadn't already got the message."

Simon Darby's blog, 2 April 2008

Tower Hamlets councilor Oliur Rahman was detained at Heathrow airport today (Wednesday) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He has expressed outrage over the incident.

Cllr Rahman was held for more than 30 minutes and quizzed by Special Branch about why he had attended the sixth Cairo international anti-war conference in Egypt. Cllr Rahman told the Advertiser from Heathrow: "A man standing behind the desk at immigration control asked to see my passport and said he was a police officer. He asked why I'd been in Cairo, how long I'd been there, what contacts I'd made and where I lived. I asked what was the purpose of these questions and he said he was from Special Branch and had the right to ask under the Terrorism Act."

"I'm really shaken about it," he continued. "They didn't stop anyone else from that flight and I'm sure it was because of the colour of my skin and because I'm a Muslim." He is writing a letter of complaint to the Met Police.

East London Advertiser, 2 April 2008

Today the BNP urged its supporters to cast a second preference vote for Boris Johnson in the London mayoral election. The fascists explained that "a second choice vote for him gives you the chance to vote BNP as your first preference and still vote to get Livingstone out of office". The replacement of Livingstone by Johnson would, the BNP opined, "be an improvement for the majority of Londoners".

You can see why the fascists might favour Boris Johnson. When it comes to Islamophobia – and the BNP are urging voters to make Thursday May 1st a referendum on Islam – they find much common ground with the Tory mayoral candidate.

Here are a few of Johnson's thoughts on the subject of Islam and Muslims....

Click to read more ...

"At the same time as a Muslim leader at the East London Mosque was sent to 27 years in jail for a rape, a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer has been exposed as supporting extreme punishment for non-Muslims – including killing and rape. A question-and-answer session between a member of 'Islam Watch' and Imam Abdul Makin in the same East London mosque, saw the Imam asked why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters. 'Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet,' the Imam says, according to the report. 'If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain.' The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent."

BNP news article, 2 April 2008

This story, which originates with Fox News and is based on a recent post at the Islam Watch website, has been doing the rounds of the right-wing blogosphere. It appears to have escaped the BNP's attention that the "Imam Abdul Makin" referred to in the Islam Watch piece is the same Abdul Mukin Khalisadar who was convicted of rape. He is neither an imam, nor a "prominent Islamic cleric", nor a "leader" at the East London Mosque.

The mosque's legal representatives have already written to the Sun in connection with its defamatory report of the rape case. Perhaps they should do the same to the BNP. 

As for Anjem Choudary, who heads a tiny group of nutters deriving from the now-banned Al-Muhajiroun, the revelation that he is "the top Muslim lawyer of Britain" at least has the merit of giving us all a good laugh.

And in view of its recent troubles over its London organiser and Assembly candidate Nick Eriksen, you might have thought that the BNP would steer well clear of the subject of rape.