I am sad to say that, from today, I will no longer be posting at the Spittoon. I’ve enjoyed being involved with the Spittoon from the beginning (all of five minutes ago) and I wish the blog and everyone involved with it the very best for the future.
الى اللقاء
George
A while ago I blogged about the handsomely named Islamic Human Rights Commission and a briefing they had put out accusing the Community Security Trust of “demonising Muslims”.
The briefing was poorly researched, wilfully inaccurate rubbish. This didn’t stop Islamophobia Watch and Bungles from giving it a ringing endorsement.
Now the CST have responded.
CST wholly denies the entirely unfounded allegations made by IHRC. The IHRC briefing is full of basic errors, distortions and misrepresentations that completely alter the meaning of the articles that it claims to analyse. It contains supposed quotes and arguments in CST articles that do not exist; and omits relevant context from the quotes and articles that it claims to analyse. Worst of all, however, the IHRC makes these claims in order to accuse CST and its staff of propagating Islamophobia, when nothing could be further from the truth.
As if there weren’t enough Islamist front groups out there, now Islamophobia Watch is announcing the formation of another one – Kafa (meaning “enough” in Arabic) which is to be launched at this (pdf) event.
Kafa*/Enough Launch Meeting
Defend the Muslim community
Friday 26 June 6.30pm
Bishopsgate Institute, Bishopsgate, London EC1
(Opposite Liverpool St tube)*Kafa is arabic for enough
Speakers include:
George Galloway MP, Daud Abdullah, Diane Abbott MP, Anas al Tikriti, Ismael Patel, Lindsey German
Stop attacks on the Muslim community
Muslims in Britain are facing attacks on many fronts. These include:
- The high-profile arrests under terror legislation of Muslims who are subsequently released without charge, creating a climate of fear and harassment;
- An increase in violent attacks on Muslims in the streets and on Muslim places of worship;
- The targetting of Muslims by the far-right British National Party;
Further to his increasingly pathetic obsession with anybody who stands against Islamism in the UK, Inayat Bunglawala has launched (via his iEngage group) yet another attack on Quilliam,. This time he is citing a report from the Redbridge Faith Forum.
The already microscopically minuscule credibility of the Quilliam Foundation has suffered yet another hugely embarrassing setback with the publication of a new report from the Redbridge Faith Forum.
The report produced by Redbridge Faith Forum (RFF) for Redbridge Safer Communities Partnership (RSCP), entitled, “Conversations with Muslim Community leaders in Redbridge about the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) Agenda”, finds that contrary to the views articulated by the anti-Muslim brigade at Harry’s Place, the QF has no following whatsoever among British Muslims.
According to the RFF report:
‘…negative view[s] towards the Quilliam Foundation [were] held almost universally by all participants and corroborated by attending meetings including Understanding Redbridge Communities (URC) meeting.’
Nick Griffin Marching With The National Front
The Times has a profile of the BNP’s regurgitated mouldy egg of a leader, Nick Griffin. Many of the details of his career you will be familiar with but others help further illustrate just what a weird and nasty piece of work he is.
By Griffin’s account, he lost his left eye in an accident when a discarded bullet exploded in a pile of wood he was burning at his home in 1990. Others have speculated that the accident happened during “survivalist manoeuvres” – a version lent some credence because his wife, Jackie, was not informed until a week later.
Griffin’s anti-Israel stance led him to make a fundraising trip to Libya at Colonel Muammar Gadaffi’s expense in 1988 (a few weeks before the Lockerbie bombing) and to laud Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, both of whom also shared Griffin’s antipathy to world capitalism, homosexuality and women’s rights.
David T of Harry’s Place and I went head to head yesterday on the question of whether it is right to ban extremist speakers from the country and, if it is not, what can be done to challenge extremist speakers such as those attending the iERA tour covered here over the last few days. (See here, here and here)
It is a massively important topic which rarely comes up for debate. So, what do you think?
Habibi blogged yesterday about a “Dawah” tour being planned by iERA, the Islamic Education and Research Academy. They’re a new group launching themselves onto the scene with a series of events in Manchester, London, Leeds, Luton, Bristol and Brighton. In particular, Habibi examined the deeply unpleasant Hussein Ye, one of their speakers and a man who claimed “a group of Jews was so happy in America, they were having a party when the twin towers had been burned. They had a celebration, they had a party going on.”
iERA may be a new group, but one name associated with them will be very familiar. Bilal Philips, the man caught by Dispatches justifying marriage to 9 year-old girls in the modern world because Muhammad did so over a thousand years ago – a clear case of anthopological illiteracy -, is not just one of their advertised speakers, he is one of iERA’s advisors.
Malaysian opposition party, the PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), has requested that the National Fatwa Council declare the Islamic women’s rights group Sisters In Islam (SIS) haram “if its activities activities is (sic) found to be contrary to the Islamic teachings and principles”; a clear call for them to be banned.
The call was made in a motion that was tabled by Shah Alam division at the party’s 55th general assembly here yesterday.
The motion which was adopted without debate also called on the fatwa council to investigate in full the activities of carried out by the organisation.
The division in its motion said the SIS’ activities were dangerous as they could cause confusion among the Muslims.
“We are aware that their approach can easily be accepted by the Muslims and this is dangerous as it can twist their aqidah, especially the young and those who went through the secular education,” it said.