Author Archives: Faisal

Iranian authorities bans protests and orders an “Inquiry”

By Faisal | Published: June 15, 2009

Iran‘s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered an investigation into claims of vote-rigging and fraud in last week’s presidential election, Iranian state TV reported today.

The report said Khamenei had told the guardian council, the clerical body that oversees elections, to examine the pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s claims of widespread rigging in Friday’s poll.

The government declared the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to have won in a landslide victory.

Today’s news represents a surprising turnaround for Khamenei, who had previously welcomed the results.

Mousavi has cancelled a rally planned for later today after being warned that militias responsible for policing it would be equipped with live ammunition.

The rally had earlier been banned by Iran’s interior ministry, but it remained unclear whether protesters would take to the streets or not because many may be unaware that the demonstration had been cancelled.
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Posted in Feature, International Affairs | Leave a comment

Has Tower Hamlets Council been Infiltrated by Islamists?

By Faisal | Published: June 15, 2009

Information about the high levels of interwoven activity between Labour Party councillors working for Tower Hamlets council and Islamist activists in East London Mosque (London Muslim Centre) appears to be reaching the public domain.

An article in the Sunday Express yesterday, by Ted Jeory, details the extent to which the Labour party in Tower Hamlets is infiltrated by members of the Saudi-backed hardline Islamist group, the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE):

The growing influence of the East London Mosque, whose education wing was built with Saudi money, on the Labour party is causing concern in Downing Street.

Gordon Brown, Justice Secretary Jack Straw and new Communities Secretary John Denham have been briefed on Islamic groups based there.

Party officials have held crisis talks about one group in particular, the Islamic Forum of Europe.

Senior party members fear it has infiltrated Labour and exerts too much power over MPs and councillors in areas with large Muslim populations.

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Posted in Entryism, Islamism, UK Politics | Tagged , , , | 74 Comments

Stealing the Iranian Election

By Faisal | Published: June 14, 2009

Iran’s Interior Ministry has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of yesterday’s election. This has been rejected by all the three opponents of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Messrs Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi, and Mohsen Rezaaee.

The second day of protests have flared up in Iran in retaliation against the re-election of incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is now an accepted fact that the Iranian election results have been rigged against the opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

“When the leader did not respond to Rafsanjani’s protest letter,” said another man standing by, “I knew the game was over. We should have never voted in the first place.” He was referring to Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council, who had written a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week, sharply criticizing Ahmadinejad’s accusations against him and his family in a TV debate, and asking that the leader ensure fair elections.

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Posted in International Affairs | Tagged | 2 Comments

Why not to use the “Muslim World” term

By Faisal | Published: June 10, 2009

In the much-vaunted delivery to Muslim delegates in Cairo last week, President Obama’s speechwriters scored a small but significant point. They did this by making the conscious decision to have Obama avoid using  the term “Muslim world”, wisely replaced instead by other terms like “Muslim majority countries” or “Muslim communities”.

To me this is just good style, an attention to detail and a healthy sign that the US administration is cognisant that the useage of “Muslim world” is a shoe-horning into one easy-to-pack term the totality of 1.5 billion people all speaking dozens of languages and dialects from every possible racial background and political stripe and stratified into untold numbers of of spiritual sects and sub-sects. If Obama’s address to Muslims, which has global repurcussions, can make a respectful nod to their localised diversity, it can only be a good thing.

Mehdi Hasan, a senior political editor at the New Statesman, does not agree.

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Posted in Identity Politics | Tagged | 15 Comments

The old new face of British politics

By Faisal | Published: June 8, 2009
Fascist

Fascist MEP, Andrew Brons

Andrew Brons of the BNP is the second of two newly elected MEPs in the Euro elections. The other, of course, is Nick Griffin. There is more on Brons from HopeNotHate.

Brons, 61, started his nazi career in the National Socialist Movement, an organisation that was deliberately founded on Hitler’s birthday by Colin Jordan, the British nazi leader who died in April aged 85. NSM members were responsible for an arson campaign against Jewish property and synagogues in the 1960s.

Brons appears to have approved. In a letter to Jordan’s wife, Brons reported meeting an NSM member who “mentioned such activities as bombing synagogues”. He declared: “On This subject I have a dual view, in that I realise that he is well intentioned, I feel that our public image may suffer considerable damage as a result of these activities. I am however open to correction on this point.”

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Posted in Anti Fascism, UK Politics | 4 Comments

The Secular State and Abdullahi An-Na’im

By Faisal | Published: June 4, 2009

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a talk delivered by the eminent scholar Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im.

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im

An-Na’im is Professor of Law at Emory Univerity of Law. The Sudanese scholar currently lives and works in the US and specialises in the synergy and interdependence between human rights, secularism and Shari`a. In a thirty minute talk (followed by thirty minutes of Q&A) he compressed the ideas of forty years of study which he put together in his last book, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a.

Professor An-Na’im began by clearing the ground of misunderstanding and fallacy by setting forth definitions of ‘Secularism’, ‘State’, ‘Community’ and ‘Shari`a’. Secularism for An-Na’im does not mean atheism or humanism although he respects those who subscribe to these ideas. For him secularism is the formal seperation of religion from state institutions. He is in favour of the secular state not secularised society.

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Posted in Democracy, Secularism | Tagged | 2 Comments

Hook’s bad seed

By Faisal | Published: June 4, 2009

It is always heart-warming when you see the sons follow the principles and example set by the father.

Radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri was jailed for seven years in 2004 for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. It is possible that his three sons will be joining their old man in prison for their involvement in the theft of “luxury cars”.

Hamza’s sons, Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohammed Mostafa, 27, helped to run the two-year operation with the cleric’s stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28.

…

Mostafa, of West London, was jailed for three years in Yemen in 1999 for links with a terrorist group. He has admitted two counts of fraud over the use of a false identity to secure a £12,000 loan against a BMW and to get keys for another BMW on April 26 and May 28 last year.

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Posted in Crime | 2 Comments

Saudi Arabia’s double standards

By Faisal | Published: June 2, 2009

Sadiq Khan, Minister of Cohesion, visited Saudi Arabia last week and became the first western minister to make the pilgramage to Mecca. He also visited Medina, where he had this to say about the University of Medina:

“I was encouraged by the university’s obvious commitment to ensure that the students have sufficient expertise and knowledge to stand in the way of violent extremism.”

Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was equally impressed with Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for former militants and its newfound committment to tackling anti-extremism at home and has been helping Pakistan in its efforts to contain the Taliban insurgency there.

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Posted in Terrorism, UK Politics | Tagged | 6 Comments

Pakistan: an Islamic State since 1973

By Faisal | Published: May 30, 2009

A recent article by Ali Eteraz in Dissent Magazine deserves to be flagged up in the light of recent events.

Most people in the world, including some Pakistanis, live under the illusion that the country is secular and just happens to have been overrun by extremists. This is false. Pakistan became an Islamic state in 1973 when the new constitution made Islam the state religion. Under the earlier 1956 constitution Islam had been merely the “official” religion. Nineteen-seventy-three, in other words, represents Pakistan’s “Iran moment“—when the government made itself beholden to religious law. Most western observers missed the radical change because the leader of Pakistan at the time was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a whiskey-drinking, pseudo-socialist from a Westernized family. Those that did notice the transformation ignored it because the country was reeling from a massive military defeat in 1971, which led to half the nation becoming Bangladesh.

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Posted in Islamism, Secularism, Sharia | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Muslims vs Takfiris

By Faisal | Published: May 30, 2009

Here’s an encouraging story for a change, involving the Muslim community of Luton.

The latest violence erupted as arguments raged between fellow Muslims shortly after Friday morning prayers in the Bury Park area of the town.

Passing traffic ground to a halt as the large group of moderates confronted about a dozen extremists.

As the radical Muslims began to set up their stall, they were surrounded by a crowd shouting ‘we don’t want you here’ and ‘move on, move on’.

Angry words were exchanges and scuffles broke out. The extremists responded by shouting “Shame on you” and “Get back to your synagogue”.

Muslims vs Takfiris

Showdown in Bury Park

Mr [Farasat] Latif said: ‘We have been fighting these Muslim extremists for you. They represent nobody but themselves.

‘The community decided to move them on because the police won’t. We have asked them, but they did nothing.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

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