Author Archives: Guest

March Against Al-Muhajiroun and for Secular Democracy

By Guest | Published: October 26, 2009

This is a guest post by British Muslims for Secular Democracy

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British Muslims for Secular Democracy today announces the launch of its plans to organise a demonstration on Saturday 31st October to counter a demonstration by Al Muhajiroun, at which they will call for the abolition of democracy in Britain and the imposition of Shariah Law on all.

That demonstration has been called by Islam 4 UK – a successor organisation to Al Muhajiroun.

British Muslims for Secular Democracy are organising the counter demonstration, bringing together a number of religious and non-religious groups.

Shaaz Mahboob, vice-chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy says:

“Our counter-demonstration is based on our belief in, and commitment to, those liberal values that define the British state, including legal and constitutional equality for all, equal rights for women and minorities, and religious freedom, including the right to be free of faith”.

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Posted in Activism, Secularism | 10 Comments

Excuses, Excuses – MB Lets Cat Out of Bag

By Guest | Published: October 24, 2009

This is a guest post by Abu Faris

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Back in 2007, considerable concern was voiced across Egypt and beyond with the publication of the Muslim Brotherhood’s draft platform. In a deeply reactionary manifesto, MB pledged to bar women and Christians from becoming Egypt’s president and (shades of Iran) to bring into being a council of Muslim clerics to offer Islamist control over the government and state.

Amongst other things, the publication of MB’s master-plan for the Islamic state in Egypt bought considerable embarrassment and dismay to those who had been previously lulled into a false sense of security by MB’s propaganda machine. As observers of MB will agree, this is a finely oiled engine that daily pumps out the false impression that MB has evolved into a political force committed to democracy and to ending the rule of the authoritarian Mubarak political system in Egypt. However, as Abdel Moneim Said, head of the leading Al Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, said at the time of MB’s platform:

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Posted in Islamism | 7 Comments

Is engagement the solution to the Middle East’s Islamists?

By Guest | Published: October 22, 2009

This is a guest post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri

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CiF today posted an interesting article by Abbas Barzegar, a PhD candidate in religious studies at Emory University, who argues the Western ‘diplomatic engagement’ with Iran, led by Obama’s Whitehouse, has made it more likely that Tehran will allow foreign oversight of its nuclear programme and ultimately make it less anti-Western.

He argues that this is part of a broader trend of Islamist groups modifying through such engagement, writing:

Iran’s concessions are part of a general trend of Islamist political actors ready to play quid pro quo when given the opportunity. From Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to Sadr’s Mahdi Army, experience shows that Islamist political parties, like most other groups, simply aim to maximise their own power and ensure their own survival. The net effect of the process has been the moderation in the policies and practices of many a feared group.

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Posted in International Affairs, Islamism, Your View | 3 Comments

The President’s New Website

By Guest | Published: October 22, 2009

This is a guest post by Abu Faris

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With parts of Sudan facing famine later this year, increased infant mortality rates being reported from conflict-wracked Northern Bahr el Ghazal State and friction mounting between the President’s Islamist supporters and the Southern SPLA/M in Sudan’s rubber-stamp National Assembly in the run-up to elections and a referendum on the future of the non-Arab south, the army of court sycophants and praise-singers that surround President al-Bashir respond to the country’s mounting woes by? Yes, that’s right, big-up still further the personality cult surrounding the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir.

The “Fifth Caliph”, as al-Bashir was once dubbed by his supporters, now has his own website. A site of singular and desperate amateurishness that underscores the complete haphazard, self-aggrandising chaos that passes for “governance in Sudan.

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Posted in Islamism | Tagged , | 9 Comments

The Wisdom of Sawalha

By Guest | Published: October 20, 2009

This is a cross-post from Harry’s Place by habibi

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Mohammed Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative, fugitive Hamas commander, and a signatory of the pro-Hamas Istanbul declaration (pdf) knows that we are living in dangerous times. He knows where the blame lies too.

The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) is appalled by reports that government has been using its Prevent programme to spy on Muslim citizens. We hail the principled decision of the Guardian newspaper to publish the findings of its investigations, which confirm that the programme has maliciously targeted Muslim communities through what Liberty describes as “the biggest spying programme in modern times”. BMI president Muhammad Sawalha said, “This campaign of espionage is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. It is an unfortunate throw back to the Cold War years when spying was the order of the day.” “We are deeply aggrieved that such measures should be adopted to target law-abiding citizens in a modern democracy”, he added. The BMI recognizes in the government strategy a dark political undercurrent of hostility engineered by the Zionist, Islamophobe and Neo-Con alliance (ZINC).

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Islamism | 1 Comment

Preventing Needless Hysteria

By Guest | Published: October 19, 2009

This is a guest post by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
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For the past couple of days, the Guardian has been running scare stories about the Government’s Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme. Gleefully feeding Islamist propaganda about the government’s supposed demonisation of Muslims, it is an irresponsible and potentially dangerous attack.

PVE is a strand of the CONTEST strategy designed to fight terrorism, and a large part of the PVE strand is the Pathfinder Fund which, through local authorities, allocates funds to local organisations that they assess can help prevent people from becoming radicalised.

The main Guardian report focuses primarily on the use of information sharing agreements (ISA) which have been drawn up between the Metropolitan Police and two councils that receive PVE funding for certain projects. These ISAs specify that PVE funded projects can share with the police detailed personal information about innocent Muslims, including details about their sex life. Having got hold of two ISAs, one from Islington and one from Waltham Forest, the Guardian has presented the Prevent strategy as nothing more than a covert dirty tricks programme designed to create a police state for innocent Muslims.

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Posted in Islamism, PVE, Your View | 21 Comments

Muslim Brotherhood front-group declares war on ‘ZINC’

By Guest | Published: October 19, 2009

This is a guest-post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri

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The Enemy (according to the BMI)

The Enemy (according to the BMI)

At the risk of sounding like Richard Littlejohn, sometimes you just can’t make it up. In response to the Guardian’s report on Saturday on how the government’s ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism programme is allegedly being used to spy on British Muslims, the British Muslim Initiative, a moribund Muslim Brotherhood front-group run by former Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Anas Al-Tikriti, briefly stirred into life in order to issue a single crazed press-release:

BMI president Muhammad Sawalha said, “This campaign of espionage is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. It is an unfortunate throw back to the Cold War years when spying was the order of the day.”

“We are deeply aggrieved that such measures should be adopted to target law-abiding citizens in a modern democracy”, he added.

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Posted in Islamism, PVE | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Accusations Of Spying Do Not Help Our Fight Against Extremism

By Guest | Published: October 19, 2009

This is a guest post by Khuram

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On Saturday the Guardian published a front page article by Vikram Dodd on the Governments PREVENT strategy. This article claimed there were concerns that the agenda was being used to spy and to gather information.   On Sunday another article by Dodd stated that influential MPs were going to investigate these allegations.  Interestingly, Dodd was also behind what was claimed to be a leak of the new Contest 2 strategy back in February 09, the actual strategy did not include anything of what was alleged.  Two important questions need to be asked then: is PREVENT really about spying and is it effective?

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Posted in Islamism, PVE, The Far Left, Your View | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

The Muslim Council of Britain weighs into the Geert Wilders debate

By Guest | Published: October 17, 2009

This is a guest post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri

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The Muslim Council of Britain, the UK’s pre-eminent Jamaat-e-Islami front-group, has issued an incisive press-release on the much-debated question of whether or not Geert Wilders should be allowed into the UK:

The Muslim Council of Britain today re-iterated the widely held view that the far right Dutch politician Geert Wilders is a relentless preacher of hate. The MCB neither condones nor condemns the decision to allow him into the United Kingdom, but it objects to the rapturous welcome he is receiving in the name of free speech.

It neither “condones nor condemns” the decision to let Wilders into the UK? What sort of nonsense is this?

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Posted in Islamism | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Fascists, Socialists, Islamists, Liberals: Holding Hands

By Guest | Published: October 15, 2009

This article by Lucy Lips has been cross-posted from Harry’s Place.

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The Palestine Telegraph reports:

The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) will host a conference on the 16th of December 2009 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency UNRWA.

This is a list of “a list of those already confirmed”:

  • Claire Short- British MP
  • Baroness Jenny Tonge- Former British MP
  • Professor Norman Finkelstein- American Political Scientist and Author
  • Ambassador Khalil Makkawi – head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee
  • Dr Daud Abdullah- Expert on Palestinian issue and Deputy Secretary General of the MCB
  • Dr Bashir Nafi- Lecturer
  • Rachel Rudolf – Professor in Political Science
  • Sami Mashasha – UNRWA Spokesperson
  • Ali Huwaidi – Director of Palestinian Organization for the Right of Return “Thabit” in Beirut
  • Tariq Hamoud – Director of Palestinian Return Community “WAJEB” in Syria
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Posted in Anti Fascism | 3 Comments

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